I Need A Vacation From My Vacation

Whew. We're Back.

After a whirlwind tour of Disneyland and a stop at the beach in Santa Barbara, we finally made it home. And I think my most relaxing day of it all was the day after we got home.

I'll start from the beginning and I'll try to keep it brief.

First stop, Anaheim. After a 7 1/2 hour car trip (including stops) we arrived at the place where dreams really do come true. But I checked my bank account when we got there and it was still the same, so I'm thinking that slogan is bogus.

We rode all the family friendly rides, saw all the exciting shows and met as many characters as humanly possible in two days. All in all, it was exhaustingly good fun.

We also learned that the Pirates of the Carribean is NOT a family-friendly ride. According to my oldest, it's a "roller coaster" and according to my middle child it's incredibly loud and scary. Of course that child's opinion may be overstated a bit, since she also thought the Winnie-the-Pooh ride was too loud.

Then again, I think she has a point. On most of those rides you are inside a dark room and secluded from the rest of the park. So why do they feel the need to make the voices and noises so incredibly loud? Do you really need to hear Tigger's little "hoo-hoo-hoo-hooo" at 100 decibels?

No matter, she suffered through anyway. The highlight was teaching her to hum and sing while her ears were covered so that she couldn't hear as much of the outside noise. This little trick worked, but unfortunately I didn't discover it until the end of the second day.

A big break-through did come in the form of our younger daughter finally enjoying the big fuzzy characters. I use the word "fuzzy" because the "real life" ones, like the princesses, were still too intimidating for her. But the big animals with huge eyes and mouths staring down at her all got hugs and smiles.


Here's the photographic evidence.

Huh. Go figure.

The one major complaint I will make is that the park turns into a madhouse at 8pm. They start closing rides and major throughways so they can get ready for the fireworks show. You not only can't walk anywhere, there is no where to go since the middle of the park shuts down to prepare for it. You could stick to the outside areas, but then you'd miss the show. You can't win either way. Maybe with a lot of planning and an engineering degree we could have navigated it better. Next time.

And then getting out of the park after the fireworks show seems much like what it would be if someone just shouted "Fire!" in a movie theatre. Mind your young ones or you might loose them under the feet of the masses.

All in all, my 6 year old daughter's favorite ride was Alice in Wonderland, my 3 year old daughter's favorite ride was sitting on top of my son's stroller, and my son's favorite ride was pushing the stools around at the cafe outside Casey Jr's Circus Train. It's safe to say who enjoyed the park the most.

We did have a great weekend in Santa Barbara as well. My husband survived his longest triathalon with flying colors. Well, his colors were fluttering at the very least. We were all very proud of him, cheering him on at the finish line.

The beach was the highlight of that part of our trip. Our sand castle construction team was headed up by my husband, and manned by the many little people we had in our company at the time. It was complete with seaweed decor and a protective moat.

Good clean fun.

Now if we could only get our son to stop screaming non-stop during all his non-sleeping hours in the car (which was most of them, if you are curious), we'd be ready to pack up for the next car trip.

And what about me, you ask? Did I enjoy our vacation?

Well thank you for asking. I did enjoy our week. It was a lot more work than our last vacation, and I had to wait in a long line to find my happy place, which was a little worn out by the time I got there, but I did have fun as well.

In my humble opinion, the best part about the trip was coming home. The next day I hardly saw my daughters and we never left the house.

They were so hard at work re-discovering the myriad of toys that live in our home that they never once asked to watch TV. The kicker was they did not once ask me to join them, which almost never happens around here.

That was my vacation. A whole day at home just watching my kids play, imaginations running wild.

Vacations are fun.

But it's good to be home.

Several Small Annoyances, One Big Bad Mood

While preparing for our road trip to Disneyland (tomorrow!) I decided I would call and confirm our hotel reservation.

Bad idea. This started a string of several small annoyances that let to one big, bad mood.

After waiting for over 10 minutes on hold with the Walt Disney Resort phone number (this was the number listed under the Disneyland Hotel on their website), it turned out I had to call the hotel directly.

After another 10 minutes on hold for the reservations department at the hotel, I somehow was switched to the automatic survey that questions you about the call you just had. But the thing is, I didn’t just have a call. I was on hold listening to annoying Disney music, which I now realize will be echoing through my every waking, and sleeping, moment for the next few days.

Now my blood pressure has significantly increased. As those child-safe swear words are coming out of my mouth (you know the ones – “sugar” and “darn” and “geez” – not nearly as satisfying as the real McCoy), I try one more time to reach their reservations.

After going through the operator and still waiting on hold for 5 or 6 minutes for reservations, I get through to someone. But this person suddenly has problems with her keyboard when she is trying to help me. She had to put me on hold again.

At this point I really wanted to get in my car, since I was on my cell phone anyway. I have to take my dog to my dad’s house so they can watch him while we are gone. I have a long list of things to do and I’m hoping I can multi-task to make up for the fact that “Call the hotel to verify adjoining rooms” just turned into three times as much work.

In preparation for the car trip, I go get out my Bluetooth and turn it on. BUT, I hit the button one too many times and I proceed to hang up the line.

@#%$#*$%!!!!!

Now I am extremely annoyed and want nothing to do with any of my kids that are at this point peppering me with questions.

Why are you so angry mommy? Who are you calling? What did you just say? Where are you going? Can I come?

I really want to beeline out of this house so I can take the dog sans kids. My son is napping and my daughters are occupying themselves so my mommy radar says the timing is ripe.

I let my mother-in-law know that I’m going to take off. She wants to take a quick shower before I go so I decide to give it another go with the hotel while I'm waiting.

And what would happen in the next 5 minutes? My son wakes up early from his nap, hollering his lungs out (see previous post for more details), and my younger daughter decides she's coming with me.

Sigh. I was so close!

Meanwhile I get bounced around again while I’m on hold. I then try to get a sippy cup ready for my son and negotiate with my younger daughter so that she can get dressed before we leave the house.

Aaaaand I’m still on hold.

After all this frustration on the phone with the hotel, I dial the operator and give her my tales of woe with my son crying in the background for bonus points. She then tries to get someone on the line herself, but still can’t get anyone from reservations. After 10 minutes of waiting, she finally asks me what I need. Then she proceeds to answer my questions in 10 seconds or less and we are all done.
Don’t you love it when that happens?

Meanwhile my son wants nothing to do with nothing, and is just alternately drinking his juice and crying.

I announce that I’m leaving and after realizing that my son will probably not be happy either way I just say ‘screw it’ and take him with me as well. He’s still in his pajamas and could use a dry diaper, but at this point I’m already 40 minutes behind schedule so I’m not stopping.

The car gets loaded up with the dog and his belongings, my daughter and her necessary snacks, my son and his tears, and we are off.

About 5 miles in to the 60 mile roundtrip I realize that my tank is closing in on empty. Crap. Add 15 more minutes to the trip.

A saving grace arrives in the form of my daughter falling asleep just before we arrive at my dad’s house.

After the drop off I jump in and head back home. At this point my son has been in the car for about an hour and he’s ready to get out of his seat. I hand him some chapstick to keep him busy.

He then takes the chapstick and beats on his sister’s head with it, since she has gone noodle-neck and is hanging her head right in front of him.

She sleeps on.

I giggle.

And then I advise him to stop pestering.

Now he gets a bit cranky, but I’m easily ignoring it. I just want to power through and get home for lunch.

Right as I pull off the freeway at our exit, my daughter starts stirring. As soon as she is conscious enough, she starts with the I-have-to-pee feet swinging. This is her telltale sign that I know too well. But I resolve that I am too close to home to stop.

I ignore her while talking on the phone with my sister. Then I acknowledge her needs and try offering distractions, but she’ll have none of it. She just wants to cry and whimper her way through it.

We arrive home and I run around, get her out of her seat and we make haste to the bathroom.

Phew! We made it. She didn't pee her pants. Or the car seat.

I really didn’t want to deal with cleaning a car seat today. I still have to pack, cancel the newspaper and the mail, pay some bills, find someone to pick up my child’s school registration packet and a number of other odds and ends. No time for extra chores today.

I head back out to get my son out of the car. He’s screaming for immediate release, so I unbuckle him and let him squirm out of his seat.

Only to notice that he has indeed been the one to pee his pants. Or more accurately, he peed his over-filled-because-I-can't-be-bothered-by-it diaper. And, of course, his car seat.

Fabulous. I can add that to the list of things to do afterall.

Woohoo.

Let the vacation begin.

But the way I see it, it has to be a good week, considering I’ve done a week’s worth of work in the two days leading up to the trip.

And it is the happiest place on earth, right?

Where better to find my happy place?

Well, I could think of a few other locations, and there aren't any oversized mice with big ears and shit-eating grins that live there.

So be it.

Mickey and Minnie, here we come.

He Just Wants To Be Loved, Is That So Wrong?

About 99.9% of the mornings in our house my husband gets up first with the kids. He's definitely a hands-on dad, getting the coffee made and breakfast ready for each of the kids. This is just one of the many reasons that I love him so. But I digress.

Usually our son begins the morning parade between 6:30 and 7am, shortly followed by our younger daughter.

It's a small blessing that these days our oldest is discovering the joys of sleeping in. Albeit only 30 minutes or so on most days, but she'll dive in deeper if she needs it; up to an hour and a half on a weekend morning sometimes. Which is a major treat if you are used to the young ones getting up when the rooster crows.

It's always a little painful if I have to wake her up at 7:30am on a weekday, but that's going to be happening closer to 7am now that we are headed toward back-to-school time.

I joyfully remember those lazy Saturday mornings when I'd sleep until 10 or 11am as a teenager.

Ah, those days seem so far away now. Waking up to the hazy almost afternoon, knowing that there was nothing to do but hang out with my sister and try to convince my mom to drive us to our friends house or the mall. I'm going to drift off and remember that carefree time in my life when my biggest worry was what I was going to wear to school on Monday.

Mmmmmmmm.

Okay, I'm back now. Ouch. That was a bit of a crash landing.

Come to think of it, crash landing is a good way to describe this morning, when my husband got up at 7am as our son demanded to be released from his cell. Not so early, I know. We are lucky. But still, I just couldn't drag myself out of bed yet.

I guess it doesn't help that he wakes up and cries as loud as he can. I don't remember my other two doing this little routine. I have clear memories of my oldest just talking in bed, having a grand ol' time until we would finally come in and get her. And I'm pretty sure my middle child did this too, although admittedly, the memories start to get a little fuzzier with her. But I know she didn't holler at the top of her lungs.

So there he is crying in his crib and along comes my husband to calm him. And it works. It's the same at naptime. You pick him up and he snuggles in for a good hug and enjoys the ride downstairs to the kitchen.

But then the minute you try to put him down or in his high chair, he screams again. He wants his milk cup, and occasionally he wants food, but most of the time he just wants to be held.

This is where the problems come in. My husband wants to make coffee and get his own morning started, and not just minister to the boy. And I'm the same way in the morning. Especially since I'm not that social when the day starts, which is where this pattern of my husband handling the wake up calls began.

We've got work to do. There are lunches to be made, two other kids to tend to for breakfast, and we mustn't forget the coffee forever getting cold as it sits unsipped on the counter. Plus we always have a dishwasher full of clean dishes that aren't just going to put themselves away now, are they? And lest we forget that we big people also need to consume some type of nourishment as well.

And there's our son, demanding to be picked up. He'll have none of it. He just gets louder with his crying and screaming until you surrender to his demands. Some mornings are better than others, but this is usually the pattern that we have around here.

And this morning was especially loud.

So my husband became a member of the Twisted Sister Fan Club and decided he wasn't gonna take it. He put him down on the floor and let him cry. Then he sat in a chair and tried to get a grip back on his happy place while reading the paper and drinking his coffee. With our son trying to claw his way back onto his lap, piercing the invisible walls that my husband was trying his darnedest to keep up.

This final round of primal screams is what eventually got me out of my sleepy-head state and back into reality. I got my butt down there in a hast and took over the hard core TLC program that my son enrolled in upon birth.

They really ought to put some kind of parent authorization on the enrollment form for that program.

The funny thing is, I just said to my sister last week that I need to start getting up at 6:30am every day so that I can get things done before any kids get up. Like drink my coffee while it's hot, for starters. Then I'd be in a better place when cry-baby our son gets up, soon followed by the other two and all the chaos that ensues.

Somehow I just can't let go of that notion of sleeping in. I want to go back in time to when my mornings were just mine, and my subconscious knows that the best way to do it is in dreamland. So I hear the baby cry and I think "not now mom, I don't want to go to school" and I shove a pillow over my head and go back to sleep. And so far my husband has indulged this teenager like behavior.

But I think it's time to pay the piper.

I gotta get the worm. Rise and shine.

And all that other early morning crap.

These three little people that run around our house really are my kids, proving that I must be one of the adults around here.

And I have to start acting like it.

Yuck.

Oh No He Di'int

I don't usually write about other people's kids, but I thought this time I might share a story with you that made me chuckle. Well really, I'm not sure if it was funny or just so curiously gross that it made me stop in my tracks a bit. Either way, here goes.

The other day I was picking up my 6 year old from camp. The camp is supposed to be for 6-8 year olds, but somehow I keep seeing smaller kids hanging around, and at times my daughter has told me that this or that person is 5 or 4 years old. Not sure if that is true, but you'll see why it's relevant in a minute.

So I'm picking her up and I have my son and my 3 year old daughter with me as well. We are standing around waiting to check her out with her counselor and everyone is situated around a picnic table.

Suddenly the overwhelming smell of poop wafts passed us. At the same time that I notice this I overhear a little girl say "Daddy, I think the baby has a poopy diaper," while pointing at my son who is happily hanging out in my arms.

I smile a little at the girl and think, maybe he does. I just changed him before we left and he's just been in the carseat, which is an unlikely place for him to do the deed, but I take a sniff anyway.

Nope, it's not my son. I figure it must just be someone passing gas. Although admittedly, it really smells more like an outhouse, which is to say I think it's the real deal and not the precursor toots.

We catch the whiff another time and now I'm just really curious as to where this is coming from. But no one else seems to care, and clearly my son is just taking the blame at the moment.

As I tell her counselor that I am picking up my daughter, I take a look around at the other campers. Besides the accuser of my son, there is at this point only one other kid left. And no other babies around that could take the fall, so I check that off my list of culprits.

This other boy looks pretty young to me, maybe around 4 or 5 years old, and he's sitting on his haunches on the bench of the picnic table.

By this I mean he is on his feet on the bench, and his butt is almost down by his ankles, only about an inch from the seat. His knees are in his face.

And from where I'm standing I have a clear view up his shorts and into his underwear.

Yup, you guessed it.

He has pooped his pants.

And it's right there airing itself out to the world because his tighty whities can't quite contain it all the way.

And it stinks.

Apparently I'm the only one that sees this. This boy has probably been sitting this way for a good 15 minutes, taking care of business, and then not knowing what the hell to do about it.

As I take all this in, I see that he is trying to look down at his deposit. But he can't really get a good look. So now he is reaching down there and poking at it with his fingers.

ACK!

As I watch him poke around down there for a second or two, he decides he's had enough of a feel and he brings his hand back up. And up and up. Right to his face.

Oh God, I think. He's going to taste it!

No, no he doesn't.

He just takes a sniff.

GACK!

I think that time I threw up a little in my mouth. Sorry about that.

He then takes a close inspection of his finger and takes another smell. The expression on his face doesn't change a bit. He just lowers his hand back down to his knee and then seems totally disinterested in the whole thing. But he's still not moving a bit.

What must be going through his head?

"Hmmmm, I wonder if I really did just poop. It kinda
smells around here. Maybe I did. Was it me? Is it in
there? I can't really see anything. Maybe I'll just reach down and
check. Hmmm. There's something in there. Wonder what it
is. Let's look. Well it looks like poop. Could just be dirt
through. Let's smell it. Yup, that's poop. I wonder when my
dad will be here. Hey look, a bird."

As I load up my kids into my car, which is right there in front, I keep staring at this kid because I am just so curious about it all that I can't tear away from it.

This is way better than the sight of the 8 or 9 year old girl the other day that literally peed her pants on the roller coaster as we were waiting in line. And she wasn't going to own up to it one bit. She just exited and proceeded to be in constant motion so her friend couldn't get a look at the evidence.

So back to poop boy. In a second his dad shows up to get him and he sllllooooooowwwly rises off the bench and takes a stand on the ground. He straddles his way over to his dad, stands for a second while his father checks him out with the counselor, and then waddles away.

He's walking like, well, like he has a load in his pants of course.

I happily have my poop-free gang buckled in and as we pull away I watch the soon-to-be-surprised dad (what will happen when he sits him in his carseat!!??) and the boy stroll off.

And I think to myself "Good luck with that."

Make It Burn

I think I'm one of those lucky people that views exercise as a part of life. At least a part of the life I am living right now. I can't really say what the future holds when my kids are older and the possibility of me working outside the home enters the picture.

Ever since I moved in with my then-boyfriend-now-husband about 11 years ago, I took on a new way of life. Thanks mostly to him. Although I truly believe I have it in me, and I always tried to optimize it, it wasn't until I absorbed part of his lifestyle that it really became a part of mine. And I'm thankful for that.

These days I try to get in one hour of exercise at least a few times a week. I'd like more but that's sometimes the most I can manage with my schedule. If I don't enjoy it often enough, I really crave it. Just like...ice cream. I'm sure my husband wishes I wrote something else in that comparison. Then again he knows me well enough to know not to stand in the way between me and my ice cream.

I especially like to play tennis, which I really like for the exercise and the social aspect. At the very least I make sure to do that once a week, and sometimes the rest is just gravy. Or yogurt, if you are talking about a healthy lifestyle.

Today was one of those days that I probably should have just written it off from the beginning. I thought about not going to the athletic club, but since I make reservations for the day care ahead of time, and get charged for last minute cancellations, I feel committed to make a go of it. So even though we were running late, as I knew we would, we went anyway.

Our lateness was a factor of a strange schedule that we are keeping this week and next. My oldest daughter is at a camp that starts at 10am, which is generally smack dab in the middle of my workouts. Who has time to drop off their kids at 10am anyway? I thought we'd go early to the club and squeeze it in. But the word "squeeze" and my schedule really don't work well together. In fact the word "change" and my schedule don't work together either, so I'm just going to have to suck it up for the next two weeks.

Nonetheless, we went to the club. And not more than 10 minutes into my workout do I see a familiar face from the child care center coming for me. That's never a good sign.

In my 5 years and 3 children at this athletic club this has only happened to me once. For that I am also blessed.

Turns out my son had something wrong with his eye that made it look sort of like pink eye. So to be safe, or in reality to keep all the other kids safe, they made me pick him up. A half hour later I realized it wasn't pink eye at all and he was perfectly fine.

So be it. Today would have to be an exercise around the house day.

What exercise, you ask? Well I’m glad you asked that question.

Here's how I see my life in calorie-burning terms.

Bending over to pick up sippy cups x 15 repetitions: 75 calories

Opening the drawer/door/cabinet/dishwasher/dryer door that my son has closed while I am doing something x 5 repetitions x 5 times per day: 50 calories

Climbing up and down the stairs to feed my son's love of playing with the safety gate at the very top of the stairs and then climbing down and starting all over x 5 repetitions: 85 calories

Sitting down to take a breather only to get back up again upon hearing cries of help/loud noises/too much quiet x 10 repetitions: 65 calories

Carrying around 24 pounds while making dinner: 100 calories

Total calories burned during this daily workout, excluding any optional piggy back rides, walks to the park or running after little people: 375 calories

Then again, the value of being able to exercise how I want while listening to my music and not the chaos that consumes every other minute of my life: priceless.