Let me start out by saying I LOVE vacation. The being in a new place and not worrying about our regular schedule, seeing new things through the kids' eyes, exploring cool spots around different cities-- so much fun!!
Notice I said "fun" and NOT "relaxing." Those of you who are childless that are reading this, take note: ENJOY YOUR VACATIONS BEFORE YOU HAVE KIDS BECAUSE AFTER YOU HAVE A CHILD THEY WILL BE ANYTHING BUT RELAXING (that applies to pretty much every area of life actually but I digress...)
Yes, family vacations are a fabulous way to create lifelong memories. The "getting there" part, however, makes me want to poke my eyeballs out.
So there we were, on the way to Silver Lake. While we were loading 867 totes of clothes, approximately 900 different pieces of baby gear paraphernalia, enough snacks and drinks to satisfy a couple third world countries, Tim and I shrugged off the two hour drive ahead of us. I mean it's just two hours, right? Even if it was full of screaming and pain, we can take ANYTHING for only two hours, we thought.
Uhh.. did we totally forget that we have kids?
Let me just lay the highlights of this particular car ride out for you:
There are five words every parent loathes hearing, especially while in the car: "LOOK AT THE MESS, MOMMY!"
First of all, I gotta say.. WHY "MOMMY?!?!?!" I mean DADDY is riding in the truck as well! I guess unbeknownst to me I am wearing a sign around my neck that says "CAPTAIN OF THE CLEAN-UP CREW." So of course I rubberneck around the headrest of my seat to see what's going on with Anna who as alerted me to this problemo.
Oh I'm sorry, did she say "MESS?!" I think she meant "ATOMIC BOMB."
Ah yes.. an ENTIRE CONTAINER of formula is spilled at Anna's feet right along with like a five pound bag of peanuts and an entire bag of Chex Mix. Honestly, more than anything I'm impressed all of this happened within like the first five miles of being on the highway. It was some SERIOUS damage in a stunningly short amount of time and I have no idea how Anna was able to reach any of it. NEVER underestimate the capabilities of a 2.5 year old.)
I snap back in my seat so I'm looking forward, trying hard not to let Tim see the fact that my eyes are about to pop out of my head. You see, my dear husband does NOT do well with matters such as this. He likes things clean.. VERY CLEAN (yes, those of you who know me, go ahead, SAY IT.. "opposites must attract," right? Oh har har, aren't you all so witty!)
It's too late, he can see my nostrils flaring and can tell I'm trying to keep composed.
"MEL, WHAT HAPPENED BACK THERE?" he says with a large dose of hysteria rising in his voice.
In hindsight, leading with, "So...you know Hiroshima?" may not have been the best way to break it to him.
He locks his eyes on the situation and within a half second he is mid-stroke driving 80mph down the highway.
Not good, not good at all.
NEXT UP: Ella poops. I mean she's a baby, it happens, I get it. However, when you're in a confined area it has a way of overtaking every single molecule of normal-smelling air.
Aaaaand there's Tim. Let's just say he's having "digestive issues" and leave it at that. So not only has Ella blown a hole in her diaper, now the cloud that is looming over Tim's section of the truck has taken the fresh oxygen supply in the truck down to about 2% and Patrick, Anna and I are clawing at the windows for clean air to breathe.
AS IF that isn't enough, right about that time Tim says, "Hey, ya know what? Pat hasn't gotten sick yet like he usually...*HURLING NOISE FROM THE BACKSEAT*...does."
So people, JUST TO REVIEW.. we've now got a POOP/PUKE/CRUSHED CHEX MIX smell issue going on. I mean do ya really need more of a reason to hurl yourself out onto the highway?!
As the cherry on top of a perfect road trip, the last 20 minutes of the trip we get lost and it's a race against time as we locate our hotel because yes, it's about to start pouring rain and no, we don't have anything covering all our crap in the back of the truck. (Wow, life would be so unamusing if we were prepared even like half of the time.. Hmm, hard to imagine...)
Just when we think we can't handle listening to one more fight from the backseat about who looks more like Elmo (the real kicker is this is a regular argument in our household) and will literally rip every last hair out of our heads if we hear, "ARE WE THERE YET?!" or "MOMMYYYYYY, I HAVE TO PEEEEEEE" again.. we see our hotel.
HAAAAAAALLELUJAH!
There might as well be a spotlight from Heaven on that building and I am SURE I heard angels singing as we pulled into the parking lot.
Seriously though.. isn't it funny how times when you think you're totally going to lose your mind because of the massive amounts of chaos around you that turn into the best memories? The ones that make you laugh until you cry when you talk about them later?
That car ride will go down in our family history and not even because it drove us within an inch of our sanity.. but because it's those kind of memories that make us family.
Don't think for one second that just because we all have sand permanently lodged in every conceivable orifice of our bodies that we didn't have an AWESOME family vacation. And yeah, we threw ourselves out of the truck upon returning home, kissed the ground and screamed "LAND!" and I had to basically OD on Motrin EVERYDAY to keep my assortment of headaches at bay but ya know what?
That's kinda the way we roll.. and I love it.
Aside from the time spent on the road (as well as the packing/unpacking aspect.. UGH!) we're already looking forward to our next trip! :D
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
where's my "I SURVIVED CHUCK E. CHEESE" shirt?
So now that I've babbled away about starting a blog.. WHAT do I WRITE about?! Hello instant writer's block! Then today, along came my muse.. Chuck E. Cheese. (Well THERE'S a sentence I never thought I'd type.)
I should mention that after surviving a trip there a couple months ago, Tim and I signed a contract in blood immediately upon exiting that we would never, ever return. Like even if the tri-state area was being bombed and poisonous gases were dumping down from the skies, it was an Apocalyptic-like situation and Chuck E. Cheese was the ONLY place we could go to survive-- we would take our chances with the bombs and poison.
Funny how you can forget just how painful an event was after such a short time. I hate comparing Chuck E. Cheese to childbirth but.. yeeeeeeah.
Who in their right mind would return to such an anxiety-inducing pit of doom?! Tim and I wondered this aloud after stumbling out of the doors and reaching freedom and air that is clean and not filled with the shrieking of disgruntled and/or over-stimulated little people. We had SURVIVED and would never go back.
A few nights ago while we were clearing dinner from the table I mentioned to Tim the plans I'd made for this afternoon. Before I could even get the "Cheese" part of "Chuck E. Cheese" out of my mouth, the plate in Tim's hand hit the floor. Mind you, our last encounter with the giant mouse had resulted in Tim totally ditching me with Patrick and Anna in the midst of a riot of adrenaline-and-sugar charged gang of kidlets, only to find him whimpering and curled up in a fetal position on the OPPOSITE SIDE of the building. He will endure pretty much anything and everything if the kids are having a good time but that kind of atmosphere traumatizes him. To this day he claims when I found him hunkered down in the corner he didn't even know where he was. (Timmo, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, but you know you can't deny it.) Hey, I give him props for even staying in the building.
So.. in we go to be branded with a stamp that shows up under a black light and links us to our kids. How bad can this be anyway? Surely my traumatic memories of this place were exaggerated.. right?
WRONG. SO WRONG.
In a word: NIGHTMARE. They need to hand out free passes to the nearest mental institution along with admission.
So let's recap, shall we?
One child vomiting in the corner (thankfully NOT mine)-- CHECK!
One set of parents in a knock-down, drag-out brawl over whose turn it is to fish their kid out of the tunnel of death-- CHECK!
Nine thousand different games making seizure-inducing noises-- CHECK!
One oversized, seemingly angry mouse chasing us around-- CHECK!
Approximately 67,849 tokens in one pocket and twice as many tickets in the other-- CHECK & CHECK!
I counted not one, not two but SEVEN children CRYING.. so my question is, if even the kids are sobbing, who IS having a good time in this equation? Surely not the little man stuffed into a mouse suit that's forced to trot around in a climate that is practically tropical from mass amounts of humans and sweat and excessive amounts of breathing due to SCREAMING and RUNNING and MADNESS.
So we go up to cash in our multitude of tickets that the kids have jammed into every single pocket of my jeans (darn you, Chuck E.. can't you give them little bags to stuff them in or something?!). I mean the whole point of this ordeal is to drag home these fabulous "prizes" Mr. Cheese has laid out before these wide-eyed children of mine, right? I'm flaring my nostrils and biting my lip the entire time we stand in the line that's seventeen people deep as I come to grips with the fact we could've bought like a week's worth of groceries with the money that will be earning us plastic spider rings and bouncy balls.
A year and a half later, we reach the front of the line. It is completely inevitable that while my darling two year old is mulling over the seemingly-impossible choice of whether she would like a blue or purple sucker, the kid behind us comes up and starts pounding his angry little three-year old fists on the glass case holding all this crap.. uh, I mean TOTALLY AWESOME TOYS. Clearly he has snapped and frankly, I can't blame him. It's taking all my adult cells not to join him in a mob-mentality kind of mutiny that results in jumping up and down, foaming at the mouth and ripping my hair out.
In the end, the kids walk away with good memories and their little hands are stuffed with candy and plastic mouse keychains (that break before we get out of the parking lot, of course).
Will we go back? Well of COURSE we will. Why? Because THAT is how much we love our kids!
I should mention that after surviving a trip there a couple months ago, Tim and I signed a contract in blood immediately upon exiting that we would never, ever return. Like even if the tri-state area was being bombed and poisonous gases were dumping down from the skies, it was an Apocalyptic-like situation and Chuck E. Cheese was the ONLY place we could go to survive-- we would take our chances with the bombs and poison.
Funny how you can forget just how painful an event was after such a short time. I hate comparing Chuck E. Cheese to childbirth but.. yeeeeeeah.
Who in their right mind would return to such an anxiety-inducing pit of doom?! Tim and I wondered this aloud after stumbling out of the doors and reaching freedom and air that is clean and not filled with the shrieking of disgruntled and/or over-stimulated little people. We had SURVIVED and would never go back.
A few nights ago while we were clearing dinner from the table I mentioned to Tim the plans I'd made for this afternoon. Before I could even get the "Cheese" part of "Chuck E. Cheese" out of my mouth, the plate in Tim's hand hit the floor. Mind you, our last encounter with the giant mouse had resulted in Tim totally ditching me with Patrick and Anna in the midst of a riot of adrenaline-and-sugar charged gang of kidlets, only to find him whimpering and curled up in a fetal position on the OPPOSITE SIDE of the building. He will endure pretty much anything and everything if the kids are having a good time but that kind of atmosphere traumatizes him. To this day he claims when I found him hunkered down in the corner he didn't even know where he was. (Timmo, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, but you know you can't deny it.) Hey, I give him props for even staying in the building.
So.. in we go to be branded with a stamp that shows up under a black light and links us to our kids. How bad can this be anyway? Surely my traumatic memories of this place were exaggerated.. right?
WRONG. SO WRONG.
In a word: NIGHTMARE. They need to hand out free passes to the nearest mental institution along with admission.
So let's recap, shall we?
One child vomiting in the corner (thankfully NOT mine)-- CHECK!
One set of parents in a knock-down, drag-out brawl over whose turn it is to fish their kid out of the tunnel of death-- CHECK!
Nine thousand different games making seizure-inducing noises-- CHECK!
One oversized, seemingly angry mouse chasing us around-- CHECK!
Approximately 67,849 tokens in one pocket and twice as many tickets in the other-- CHECK & CHECK!
I counted not one, not two but SEVEN children CRYING.. so my question is, if even the kids are sobbing, who IS having a good time in this equation? Surely not the little man stuffed into a mouse suit that's forced to trot around in a climate that is practically tropical from mass amounts of humans and sweat and excessive amounts of breathing due to SCREAMING and RUNNING and MADNESS.
So we go up to cash in our multitude of tickets that the kids have jammed into every single pocket of my jeans (darn you, Chuck E.. can't you give them little bags to stuff them in or something?!). I mean the whole point of this ordeal is to drag home these fabulous "prizes" Mr. Cheese has laid out before these wide-eyed children of mine, right? I'm flaring my nostrils and biting my lip the entire time we stand in the line that's seventeen people deep as I come to grips with the fact we could've bought like a week's worth of groceries with the money that will be earning us plastic spider rings and bouncy balls.
A year and a half later, we reach the front of the line. It is completely inevitable that while my darling two year old is mulling over the seemingly-impossible choice of whether she would like a blue or purple sucker, the kid behind us comes up and starts pounding his angry little three-year old fists on the glass case holding all this crap.. uh, I mean TOTALLY AWESOME TOYS. Clearly he has snapped and frankly, I can't blame him. It's taking all my adult cells not to join him in a mob-mentality kind of mutiny that results in jumping up and down, foaming at the mouth and ripping my hair out.
In the end, the kids walk away with good memories and their little hands are stuffed with candy and plastic mouse keychains (that break before we get out of the parking lot, of course).
Will we go back? Well of COURSE we will. Why? Because THAT is how much we love our kids!
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