My brother in law and sister in law were married on the beach, during high tide. It was an awesome idea; except Carter decided that as of that day he was going to scream every time a wave came to shore. :( I also learned during their wedding, that if Pierce is tired, he will fall asleep in a restaurant and stay asleep through transfers to the stroller, car, and hotel. Carter will keep going, no matter how tired he is. This leads to a few little tantrums and some falls, and some concern about when he is a teenager. lol. I also learned about just how sensitive Pierce is. He wanted to leave the trip half way through since he missed Amber, our dog.
As much as I learned about the boys, I learned a few things about myself. I realized I stress about the little things on vacation; such as having to be at certain places at certain times. I know I drove my husband up a wall with that. I also realized how nice it was to feel like a family of 4. Often times, Dan and I are doing the divide and conquer scenario, where we are not together with the boys. We had a blast being the 4 of us, doing our thing, and exploring together. I like that he is random and looks for the little stuff. I tend to look for the big stuff and try to fit everything in. I would say that almost 6 years of marriage later, we still complement each other pretty darn well.
I was also reminded about how nice the general public could be. We had stopped at a beach on the Balboa Peninsula that also had a playground on it. A mom had her little girl share her toys with my boys, and made them so incredibly happy. After all, Pierce felt left out that he had no sand toys the whole trip. Another random person saw me in our local bank trying to cash in my tips before we left. She came up to me and handed me a $20 bill just because she had a blessed week, and wanted to pass that on to me. I had people compliment Dan and I on how well we were doing with both boys on an airplane, and how amazing of parents we were.
On the flip side, I was reminded about how miserable a couple of people could be. And maybe miserable is not the right word, but narrow minded. We were stuck on the runway for 45 minutes with nowhere to go at 9:30 at night, waiting to take off. Of course the boys are exhausted, Dan and I were exhausted, and we all just wanted to go home. Carter pitched a fit, and there was NOTHING that we did to stop it. The guy in front of me had the nerve to tell me I should be buying him a drink for having to put up with my child. By the way, our son was not the only child on that flight that just wanted to go home. If a parent is making an obvious effort to calm their child down, soothe them, and be an active parent, no comment should EVER be made to that parent. As uncomfortable as it is for you, it is probably a million times more uncomfortable for the parent that is sweating and on the verge of tears trying to get their child to stop. Parents obviously know that other people do not want to hear their child have a tantrum. I can tell you that the parent does not want to hear it either.
But now we are back to reality, and like I said it was an awesome trip. Yesterday I stocked the house back up for food, Dan picked up the dog, and we were trying to adjust our bodies back to Eastern Standard Time. Today, Dan went back to work, and I tried a little something different with the boys. I set up various trays of activities for them to pick and choose during the day about what they wanted to do. One of the trays was a simple piece of paper with lines on it to practice cutting. Another one had cornmeal on it for Carter to play in, while Pierce made sun catchers out of colored glue. Then we had the peg board, where I introduced Pierce to patterns, and a couple of random board games lying around. It really worked out well and honestly made the day fly by. And of course, those trays were mixed up with plenty of outside time.
I hope everyone else had a great week, and I will update soon with some more project ideas!
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