Turns out that everyone else also took Great Wolf Lodge up on its offer for fabulous savings on not-so-popular days. We arrived yesterday around four and knew we were in for a different experience when we walked into the lobby and found the line for check-in snaking around the entire room. Our room was wonderful; we were upgraded into a room with a loft. Jack was thrilled that he could jump from bed to bed, and that he had his own space upstairs. Truth be told, the loft was actually an acoustic torture chamber as our beautiful children took turns screaming and whining each and every time we stepped foot into our room.
The water at the water park was much colder than it was in October. Much. And not only was the water colder, but because it was so crowded, you also had to wait in line to go down the slides. I do have to admit, watching Hannah, in her adorable swimsuit "swim" in the wave pool was pretty cute. She was so happy and just grinned from ear to ear. That girl is a magnet for "oohs" and "ahhs" from strangers, I tell you. When we finally got out of the wave pool though, we realized how very cold we actually were.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that Brad lost his wedding ring at the water park as well. And so far? It hasn't shown up. Our best guess is that due to the chilly temps, water, and babies, it fell off somewhere in the park. Lovely.
Before we left the water park, Jack wanted to go down one of the slides again. He and Daddy had said that they'd gone down two different slides at the same time, and Jack wanted to do that with me. Sure, why not? We go into this section that is impossible to navigate without getting soaked. Jack, being the smart boy that he is, wanted to be held so that the cold water wouldn't land directly on him. When we finally got to the top, Jack explained again that he was going to go down the green slide and that I should go down the yellow slide. I explained that there was a long line for the yellow slide and that I could just slide down after him, but he kept telling me that wasn't what he and Daddy did. I was not understanding how the whole thing had worked, and I was freezing to death, so in a moment of poor judgement, Jack got in his line, and I stood watching him from mine. He went down before me, and I just assumed that when he went with Daddy, he just waited for Daddy at the bottom of the other slide. Not so. After waiting in line for a few minutes, and peering over the edge to see Jack, I found him standing next to Daddy and Hannah. Apparently, he'd had the good sense to go find Daddy and wait with him. When I finally came down the slide, Brad was not happy. His concern, which was a valid one, was that Jack had been left unattended. When I asked him how they had done it previously, he said that either he or Jack had let people in front of them so that they could go down at the same time, and then Brad catapulted himself down the slide to arrive at the bottom before Jack. Probably would have been a smart decision, but it just hadn't occurred to me. I have no idea why. Mother-of-the-Year Award? FAIL.
The good news is that Jack had fun on the slides. We came back to the room, got changed, and then went to dinner, but it was late, and both of our little lovelies fell asleep during the meal. Hannah in her Baby Bjorn, and Jack across the bench we were sharing. Luckily, we all slept well last night.
After a rough morning and another brief stint at the water park (well, at least for Jack and Daddy - Hannah and I were in the hotel room so that she could catch up on a proper nap after screaming during my entire shower), we visited the arcade, had lunch in the room, and then prepared the babies for nap time. It was then we realized that Jack had the sniffles. The approximately every-42-seconds sniffles (probably from that ice water we exposed him to at the park. Again, Mother-of-the-Year Award? FAIL.). Makes it kinda tricky for everyone to nap, wouldn't you think? I gave him some medicine, and he did finally fall asleep for about half an hour.
It was during that time that Brad and I decided that nobody was really having any fun, and that we should really just pack up and go home. Why should we stay there and spend more money for all of us to be miserable? It just didn't make any sense. I started to pack us up. We loaded all of our belongings back onto the cart - which was pretty funny in itself due to the amount of things we brought for what was now an overnight trip. I tried to take a picture of our things as we waited for the elevator, but just as the camera went off, a staff member walked into the shot. I didn't have the heart to try again - it had just been one of those days.
On the way home, Jack got progressively worse, he didn't even want to get out of the car to eat, so I actually ended up feeding Hannah her baby food while in her car seat. I sang songs the last 45 minutes of our trip to keep the babies from crying. Poor Jack can barely breathe through his nose, and he's saying his throat hurts and that juice tastes funny. We have a date with the doctor tomorrow morning at 7:30 am. Should be fun... I hope that he'll be able to sleep well tonight - I hate when my little lovelies don't feel good.
So, all in all...
I'm not sure how people with small children travel. Or at least make traveling look easy. I just don't get it. Taking diapers, and baby food, and bottles alone is exhausting. Not to mention bedtime stories and toys. And strollers (which in another moment of poor judgement, I decided to bring the single stroller as opposed to the double stroller). And the Bumbo seat, since poor Hannah isn't sitting up on her own. I just don't understand. And clearly we were not ready. It was too soon. We are not the kind of people who can just go with the flow and it'll all be okay. It seems like when it gets bad, it just always ends up snowballing into worse.
I'm thinking that we're putting vacations on hold for a long time. Maybe even until Miss Hannah is out of diapers. By my calculations, that puts us at about the time that Jack is getting ready to go into kindergarten. Which seems so very far away, but I know that it's really not. I just want them to get to do fun things and for us to build memories as a family of four. I'd love to have fun, yearly vacations. Maybe we just have to wait a few years to start?! I don't know. All I do know, is that this is the last time for a long time.
In talking about the past 36 hours as I typed this post, Brad and I discovered the silver lining of our trip: there was no traffic to or fro.
Yeah, that's it. I've got nothing else.
2 comments:
Oh, I remember those days well. Chris and I packed up the kids every summer and did a week in the Poconos with the Nealons and a week with my family in New Hampshire. Our car was overflowing...diapers, pack-in-plays, saucers, bouncy seats...I don't know how we all fit in the car. But I wouldn't have changed a thing. You can still go on vacations with little ones, you just have to strategically plan : ) My kids LOVE. LOVE, LOVE the water so we would plop ourselves on the beach in either the Poconos or New Hampshire and they would swim and play in the sand for hours. Lake beaches are the best for little kids because you don't have to worry about the waves knocking them down. When the baby was tired, I could put him or her down for a nap and the older ones would have lunch and then go back down to the beach with Chris while I sat in our house or cabin with the sleeping ones. We only went to Great Wolf Lodge for the first time a couple of years ago because I wanted Molly to be a little bit older and I was worried about trying to keep track of four little ones.
Don't feel guilty about the sniffles or the runny nose. My guys are all fighting "stuff" right now and Timmy is on an antibiotic for strep. It's that time of year. Jack might have gotten sick even if you stayed home this weekend. I remember when Timmy was 15 months, we stopped at Hershey Park on the way home from the Poconos and spent the day there. We had a great day but I could tell that Timmy was starting not to feel well. The next day he had almost 106 fever and ended up in the hospital for three days with pneumonia. Talk about mother's guilt! But he would have gotten sick even if we hadn't stopped that day.
You are a great mom and you have years ahead of you to create great family memories...just take it slow and easy while they are little.
Another thought...if you ever need a mother's helper...Shannon is great!!! Just went to 9th grade parent orientation if you can believe that one...the days may be long now but the years are oh so short.
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