I'm sorry. Did I say "vacation" in that last post?
THIS IS WORK. I'd rather be at school...and I hate school.
We woke up Friday morning at Uncle Jimmy's apartment in Orlando. The boys did not get enough sleep to be pleasant on a plane today. They were already amped to be sleeping in a different place when we came in an hour later than we planned.
We got to the airport between 7:30-8:00 to meet our 10 o'clock flight. Big D wanted to run around everywhere. I gave Little P his "Chick-fil-A/TPD" I.D. to make him feel a little older. I thought I was being a cool dad. Big Mistake.
Little P is anything but shy as he interrupted (with an "excuse me" of course) the conversations plenty of TSA agents while we stood in long lines, hands full with carry-ons, shoulders full with an impatient, squirming 2-year old.
Once we got through the security, we met up with the in-laws at a food court. I downed my BK #1 while taking turns chasing Big D around. Betsy got a smoothie from Smoothie King. Her plan was to drink it on the plane. At the gate, we would normally have two options: board first and lock the boys down while the rest of the plane loaded, OR board last. Seeing as how we were the last ones at the gate, we were forced into option #2. Betsy hands me here smoothie while she looks for that "pocket-where-the-tickets-will-be-easy-to-find." So now I find myself holding a crank 2-year old in one arm, and car seat in that hand, and a smoothie in the other as Little P takes it upon himself to run his I.D. through some scanner/expensive looking machine. Stomach in knots (it's natural state) I grab Little P's wrist trying in vain to prevent him from breaking a scanner thing and getting us kicked out of an airport hundreds of miles from home.
That's when the smoothie explodes on the floor. And on our pants. And on our carry-ons.
A two-hour-long plane ride (funny how the missus found a seat away from the boys and myself) and we touch down at La Guardia. We get in the rental car (Toyota Carrola) and drive 25 miles in an hour and a half. Betsy is the primary driver at this point because she causes me nothing but stress when she's a passenger (not sure when this happened in our relationship) so I figure if she's going to be stressed anyway, she might as well drive.
We get to the hotel and Big D enters first. I'm a big stickler for routine when it comes to children, and we just broke MY first rule of entering a hotel room. I always enter first and do a quick sweep that includes: putting the microwave, glasses, coffee pots out of reach, and disconnecting the room phone either from the receiver, or the base, or both. Because when you don't do that, those are the first things at their eye-level, and their to-do list. After that, I jump on the beds with them. Why not?
From there, we drove to Aunt Betsy's house on Staten Island. We used Mapquest on Betsy's phone and got lost like crazy. The phone would sleep, I'd wake it up, press some button I wasn't supposed to and lose our directions. Betsy and I seriously hate each other at times like this. I snap and figure out GPS on my phone. I felt like Batman, rolled in a James Bond, and covered in Iron Man. It was the highlight of the trip by far.
That was Friday.
Today was the day/night of the BIG PHOTO. The ENTIRE reason this trip was planned months ago is the BIG PHOTO.
My mother-in-law is one of ten children. Back in 1961, all ten Werring kids took a picture in front of the Christmas Tree. They Werring kids (half- are grandparents now) wanted to take the same photo 50 YEARS LATER in front of the Rockafeller Tree with all the extended branches of the family.
Today, we drove to Aunt Betsy's, got lost following a gold van to the restaurant, and ate for four hours. Not really something my boys are conditioned for. Big D wanted to run around everywhere and Little P had a fever. A chartered bus picked us up (all 67ish of us) and drove into the city. This was a bigger highlight to me. To dive into the city in a bus, above the traffic, against a setting sun was very cool.
We all disembarked from the bus a block out and walked to the tree. As all 67 us trekked into the city, and exactly how crowded the tree was, how constant the stream of tourists was, it sank in that the BIG PHOTO, the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the ENTIRE reason this trip was planned months ago wasn't going to happen. Even the "photographer" bailed.
It was shoulder to shoulder crowed. Betsy and I both teach. We don't like chaos. If kids act crazy of off the chain, we get them in line and we do it quickly. This was a big nightmare. I don't know what an anxiety attack feels like, or what it's like to have a nervous breakdown, but all the ingredients were there. Eventually the original ten had their photo taken and then the next generation took theirs. Half of the crew stayed and partied, the other half (our half) started the hour long journey back home.
The city was/is just too crowded, and a 2-year old didn't make anything easier.
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