I'm generally not a believer that children need to be entertained all the time. In fact, I think mommas who constantly entertain their children, or send them to preschool to be entertained, do their children a huge disservice. Children need to learn how to play and how to imagine. They need to explore things for themselves. Thus, you'll notice the crayon markings on the walls of my house, the upturned chairs turned into forts, the "relocated" dirt piles (and holes) in my backyard, empty water bottles converted into toys in the playroom, and pictures of who-knows-what taped to random places in my bedroom courtesy of my kids. In spite of my type-A nature, I give my children lots of freedom to be creative on their own at home. This freedom, however, does NOT work on vacation.
Although Mr. Wonderful and I love to enjoy vacations where we have absolutely nothing planned but to relax, this didn't work very well for our energetic gang. If I had a vacation do-over, the first thing I would do is to plan an activity for the kiddos on Day 1. In hind sight, we probably should have made more stops on the way to San Antonio, and one stop should have been a park. Instead, our major stop was at an outlet mall where Mr. Wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed bargain hunting. Unfortunately, not all parties (especially Tornado Man) enjoyed this outing.
I knew that we were in for a long week when Mr. Wonderful walked out of a surfer store and appeared agitated with our four year old son. Apparently, he walked through the store and licked as many stacks of t-shirts as he could find. Yes, licked--with his tongue! We're still not sure how many shirts got licked before Daddy saw what was happening. But we're also pretty sure that we're not welcome in that store for a looooong time! And that was before the "I'm thirsty" and "I have to go to the bathroom again" started. Our 2 hours of shopping was ultimately successful, but by the time we left I really did have a massive headache. And that was Day 1.
On Day 2, Daddy highly overestimated how fun a baseball game could be for little people. Mr. Wonderful was so excited to get to go to a San Antonio Missions baseball game that day. It was perfect and sunny, the Missions were playing the Frisco Rough Riders (the TX Rangers' AA team and one of our favorites), and we had seats right behind home plate. How could this have been bad?
Well, let's just say that our game lasted all of 2 innings. None of the kids were overly impressed with the game. Baby G turned bright red and started to literally overheat, Boy 2 complained about every possible thing he could think of, and Boy Wonder started crying when we told him he had to sit next to a stranger. It was a complete disaster--drama, drama, drama. The only thing that Daddy really wanted to do on this trip was a huge bust. And by the time we got back to the hotel, Daddy wasn't speaking to the kids. He even left me at the hotel and went and got me Starbucks just to get some fresh air. That's when I knew, we might be in for a really long week. (Stay tuned to hear how the week got better.)
This STILL makes me laugh! So sorry...!
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