Sunday, July 6, 2008

Every Family has to have a Life Lesson like this...

So, we headed out to Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown (the Historic Triangle) in Virginia on Thursday the 3rd of July to spend the Holiday weekend in the first US colony, I thought that would be a fitting time. I was so excited to learn a lot and see what had been stated as one of the '15 Must See's' for children from Parent magazine. What I didn't expect would be that my children just weren't ready for it, on many levels.
Well, Aimee woke up sick the day before we had to be leaving on vacation, Brock started to show signs of teething (he has six teeth, but still needed to get his two front top teeth), but you know we had a reservation and it was none refundable (because we thought there would be no reason we would cancel this trip, and we got a better deal on the accomodations). Even with kids that didn't feel 100% well, we hadn't even thought to cancel.
The drive was fine, it was only a 6 hour car ride, (you know a few movies on the car DVD player), time should go by fine, it did. I have to tell a little cute thing that happened with Aimee on the way. The week before I had bought some small jugs of Sunny Delight and she saw them in the pantry. She asked if we could take them on the trip. On the way, she hadn't realized that we had actually left for the vacation, and out of nowhere she says, "Mom, are we going to see the fireworks?" "Yes, Aimee", "Oh, are we on the trip?" "Yes, Aimee", "Mom, we need to go home and get the little orange juices to bring them with us!!", "Don't worry Aimee, I got them packed", "Oh, good, cause we need to have them for the trip!" Anyway, it was really cute, and a great reminder to us how simple little kids are, she is sitting there thinking that was one of the most important things that we needed for our trip, while my concerns were on different things that I would find important as an adult, I wish life could be that simple sometimes.
It all started was when we got into the hotel room at 9:30 p.m., our kids were tired so we proceeded to try to get them in their p.j.'s. All of the kids had pent up energy from sitting still so long, so here they are not listening to a word that we say, as the time continues to tick and it is getting later and later, they start to get adgitated with every little thing each of them do to each other, they start to argue, and pretty soon Jason and I find our selves threatening that we will leave in the morning if they don't quite down and get along and stop bothering the people in the rooms next door to us. Needless to say, they continue.... by the time they all fall a sleep, we are almost certain that if we don't get kicked out of the hotel the next day and things don't start better we will turn around and go home, (having not seen anything yet).
Can you guess what happened? Yes, the next morning starts early with them all waking up at 6:00 a.m. (not a normal occurance for our kids), once again already on each others nerves. Nothing changed with a little sleep. They are yelling at each other and ignoring what we ask and say. So as to not lose our respect as a parent, we loaded up our kids (and much to the disappointment of Jason and Angie) we headed back to Charlotte, where we had come from.
If a 12 hour drive in a day and a half doesn't sound fun, try doing it with nothing to show for it, but $200.00 worth of gas guzzled by your SUV and a $89.00 hotel bill.

Our next family vacation is now up for debate. We want to head to the Beach, either Myrtal, or Surf City in about 4 weeks, but the kids are now being judged nightly on their behavior for two weeks straight before we will even attempt that one. (the up side, is that the beaches are only 3 hours away, and hopefully they will be looking forward to that one a lot more), so far so good.

We did end up having a wonderful weekend at home in Charlotte with the kids and we all got along great, probably better than they have in a long time. I just know that looking back on our family experiences our kids will always remember the time we went on vacation and just turned around and went home. I hope we can get a lot of laughs out of it.

2 comments:

summer said...

That is hilarious! I actually was voted Meanest Mom on the morning of July 4th because we pulled up to watch the air balloons take off, but like your situatoin no was listening, there was arguing, and I gave the warning, and still it continued. I loaded them back in and we drove away with wailing and crying from everyone - well, I was close to crying too! It wasn't 6 hours driving like you had - but it was still painful. It's hard to stick to your word in cases like this where we as parents are punished as well, but the hope is that our kids are all going to take us more seriously, right?!! Good luck with the beach trip...as much as I LOVED always going to Williamsburg, the beach is always much more relaxing :)

Joy & Casey said...

Angie-
I am a nerd...I can't figure out how to post a comment on your newer posts...sorry! We are SO glad you guys are back. I think you are amazing anyways but it's been fun to watch you roll with this. I wish I could do that! We will be sad when you are gone again-it's just not the same without the Smarts-but we know you guys are excited and that is fun. Our blog is joyandcasey.blogspot.com.
Have a great day!