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Dads & Dads-to-be
Coltsdad
member
Ugh, what a weekend. *vent*
Coltsdad
member
So this was the weekend of the big trip from Indiana to North Carolina for my wife's 1st cousin's wedding. I was dreading it for a while now... partially because of the drive time, and partially because of the money it'll cost to go. This is mostly just to vent about what happened...here is a recap of the weekend:
Friday:
13 hour drive from Indiana to Raleigh, NC. Right about at the Indiana/Ohio border, my oldest decided that he thought we were going to see Mickey Mouse at Disney World. When we had to break it to him that no, we were going to North Carolina, not Disney World (which we had told him multiple times where we were going before) so he decided to throw a fit. The DVD player in the van was a godsend, but left us listening to Pixar movie audio the bulk of the trip because he refused to wear his wireless headphones. We finally get to the hotel at 8:15 PM, and he loses his shit. All the pent up energy that he had from being confined in the car gets unleashed in one big 2 hour release...it is amazing that it didn't look like an 80s metal band hadn't stayed there after he was done with it. Youngest one refused to sleep in his pack and play (I don't blame him, it isn't a soft sleeping surface at all) and the older one did OK in his inflatable bed with the sleeping bag like cover on it.
Saturday:
Oldest gets up at 6:45, climbs out of his bed and into ours. I guess we are up now. We get everyone ready, fed, and out the door to go to the Marbles Kids Museum. Pretty cool place in downtown Raleigh. One thing that kind of blew my mind is that they had a section with real tools for kids to build stuff... including hand saws. No real notice of that until you get in there... so you have 6 year olds yielding hand saws and not being very careful just walking around because of course, some of the parents don't watch the kids. Anyways, we had a blast there and then went to a place called The Pit, which is a BBQ place featured on several different Travel Channel (Man Vs Food for one) and Food Network shows. Food there was amazing. My brisket literally was so tender you could cut it with a fork and it fell apart doing that. We head back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. Oldest grabs a 20 minute nap in the car on the way to the hotel and then wakes up when we get there and refuses to go back to sleep (he does this at home too). We get ready and drive 30 minutes to the wedding site... a very nice horse farm with a gazebo out on the water, very nice, but rustic place. Kids don't like being still, so I take them out of the immediate ceremony area, but I get to watch from a little further away, at times, while still keeping an eye on the oldest, so I miss chunks. We get to the reception, which is on site, and again, my oldest loses his shit. He decides that now would be a good time to continue to run away from everyone and wander off on his own. You'd think between his mom, dad, 1 set of grandparents, uncle, aunt, great greandparents and multiple cousins, that he would be watched better, but no... I was the only one really keeping track of him. He attempted to run off by himself at least 9 times throughout the reception, including once during the cake cutting, when he tried to photobomb the cake cutting to get away from me. He got a nice timeout in the car for a while, so I missed the best man/maid of honor toasts, and never got to relax the entire night. Oldest wouldn't go on the dance floor at all, no interest in dancing with anyone... my wife, cousins, my mother-in-law, no one. We got home at 11 because my wife was having too much fun goofing off because she shoved the responsibility of watching our oldest more or less on me.
Sunday:
Despite a 20 minute nap and falling asleep at 11 PM the night before... he wakes up at 3 AM screaming, I get out of bed and comfort him and he goes back to sleep and then gets up at 6:45 AM again, crawling into bed with us once more. At this point, from the time I went to bed Thursday night, I have maybe gotten 19 hours of sleep between Friday, Saturday and Sunday... and we have to go back home, another 13 hour trip. Fortunately, this time the trip was far less eventful. Got home at 11 PM. Put the kids to bed, unloaded the car and was asleep at 12:15 AM Monday.
Monday:
Kids got up at 6:45 AGAIN. It is like my oldest has an internal clock that wakes him at 6:45 every damn morning... he rarely ever sleeps in. It sucks. Monday was the day of my wife's gall bladder removal. So we drop the kids off at my parents, and head to the surgery center. She had her surgery, everything went well (thank goodness) and I brought her home. She's in some pain, but medicated, so she's doing pretty well overall. At 8:30, get a call from my mom saying that oldest son has a 102.4 fever, but isn't acting sick, still has a full appetite, etc. So, my mom is keeping tabs on him... as long as he doesn't act sick, I'm not going to freak out unless the temp goes higher, but last thing we currently need is for him to be sick.
It has been a LONG 4 days... vacation my ass... this has been more work than some weeks at my job.
Friday:
13 hour drive from Indiana to Raleigh, NC. Right about at the Indiana/Ohio border, my oldest decided that he thought we were going to see Mickey Mouse at Disney World. When we had to break it to him that no, we were going to North Carolina, not Disney World (which we had told him multiple times where we were going before) so he decided to throw a fit. The DVD player in the van was a godsend, but left us listening to Pixar movie audio the bulk of the trip because he refused to wear his wireless headphones. We finally get to the hotel at 8:15 PM, and he loses his shit. All the pent up energy that he had from being confined in the car gets unleashed in one big 2 hour release...it is amazing that it didn't look like an 80s metal band hadn't stayed there after he was done with it. Youngest one refused to sleep in his pack and play (I don't blame him, it isn't a soft sleeping surface at all) and the older one did OK in his inflatable bed with the sleeping bag like cover on it.
Saturday:
Oldest gets up at 6:45, climbs out of his bed and into ours. I guess we are up now. We get everyone ready, fed, and out the door to go to the Marbles Kids Museum. Pretty cool place in downtown Raleigh. One thing that kind of blew my mind is that they had a section with real tools for kids to build stuff... including hand saws. No real notice of that until you get in there... so you have 6 year olds yielding hand saws and not being very careful just walking around because of course, some of the parents don't watch the kids. Anyways, we had a blast there and then went to a place called The Pit, which is a BBQ place featured on several different Travel Channel (Man Vs Food for one) and Food Network shows. Food there was amazing. My brisket literally was so tender you could cut it with a fork and it fell apart doing that. We head back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. Oldest grabs a 20 minute nap in the car on the way to the hotel and then wakes up when we get there and refuses to go back to sleep (he does this at home too). We get ready and drive 30 minutes to the wedding site... a very nice horse farm with a gazebo out on the water, very nice, but rustic place. Kids don't like being still, so I take them out of the immediate ceremony area, but I get to watch from a little further away, at times, while still keeping an eye on the oldest, so I miss chunks. We get to the reception, which is on site, and again, my oldest loses his shit. He decides that now would be a good time to continue to run away from everyone and wander off on his own. You'd think between his mom, dad, 1 set of grandparents, uncle, aunt, great greandparents and multiple cousins, that he would be watched better, but no... I was the only one really keeping track of him. He attempted to run off by himself at least 9 times throughout the reception, including once during the cake cutting, when he tried to photobomb the cake cutting to get away from me. He got a nice timeout in the car for a while, so I missed the best man/maid of honor toasts, and never got to relax the entire night. Oldest wouldn't go on the dance floor at all, no interest in dancing with anyone... my wife, cousins, my mother-in-law, no one. We got home at 11 because my wife was having too much fun goofing off because she shoved the responsibility of watching our oldest more or less on me.
Sunday:
Despite a 20 minute nap and falling asleep at 11 PM the night before... he wakes up at 3 AM screaming, I get out of bed and comfort him and he goes back to sleep and then gets up at 6:45 AM again, crawling into bed with us once more. At this point, from the time I went to bed Thursday night, I have maybe gotten 19 hours of sleep between Friday, Saturday and Sunday... and we have to go back home, another 13 hour trip. Fortunately, this time the trip was far less eventful. Got home at 11 PM. Put the kids to bed, unloaded the car and was asleep at 12:15 AM Monday.
Monday:
Kids got up at 6:45 AGAIN. It is like my oldest has an internal clock that wakes him at 6:45 every damn morning... he rarely ever sleeps in. It sucks. Monday was the day of my wife's gall bladder removal. So we drop the kids off at my parents, and head to the surgery center. She had her surgery, everything went well (thank goodness) and I brought her home. She's in some pain, but medicated, so she's doing pretty well overall. At 8:30, get a call from my mom saying that oldest son has a 102.4 fever, but isn't acting sick, still has a full appetite, etc. So, my mom is keeping tabs on him... as long as he doesn't act sick, I'm not going to freak out unless the temp goes higher, but last thing we currently need is for him to be sick.
It has been a LONG 4 days... vacation my ass... this has been more work than some weeks at my job.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Ugh, what a weekend. *vent*
My wife told me over Christmas vacation last year that I could go back to Northern PA during the bad snow storm by myself because it was too unsafe for her and the kid. I took the over the hills route and I was white knuckled at times (I took this route since they were not with us). The next day my parents took the same route and it was clear so I took it home. We also had to cancel the first part of the trip since her sister got sick and couldn't talk.
The day we actually did activities geared for him he was great. The wedding wasn't really his scene and he was tired.
It has me slightly concerned, but not cancelling any future trips... including the Disney trip we are taking when they are just over 4 and almost 2 respectively.