Jun
7
If there’s one thing that seems to be consistently true about children, it’s that they’re almost always (but not, of course, to the point of being consistent) inconsistent in their behavior. Which is to say, I expected the absolute worst last weekend, but it turned out that bringing two rambunctious boys to a funeral was perfectly fine. Riley preened in his clip-on tie and shiny black shoes and handed out memorial flyers in an adorable fashion, while Dylan played quietly with a muted iPhone until the precise moment when the minster asked everyone to observe a moment of silence for Uncle Jack, at which point he slithered into JB’s lap and fell into an angelic, rosy-cheeked slumber.
Of the various outcomes I had imagined, boy, Being Helpful/Quietly Napping didn’t even make the top 50.
Anyway, we’re back home again and still catching up on laundry. This time we broke up the trip with a couple of hotel stays between here and Coos Bay, cutting down on the driving-related insanity but upping the overall sense that road-tripping nearly 1,000 miles with kids on a regular basis really shits the bed. Oh, I am crossing my fingers that 2011 is our year for figuring out how to move to Oregon. We should be closer to family, for so many reasons.
Jun
1
Last Sunday we drove a few hours east in search of sunshine and death-distraction (did I tell you how our 15-year-old Lab has been diagnosed with a failing heart and a mass in her throat that may or may not be cancer? Did we want to subject her to a biopsy and treatment, they asked us, and we chose Shitty Answer #2 of the Potential Shitty Answers to that question and said no we did not) and we found ourselves in a place called Moses Lake. It turns out that Moses Lake is where every single person on earth goes on Memorial Day weekend in order to camp in the gritty sand dunes and ride ATVs, but we found some quiet, lovely spots too.
I love that the boys are getting old enough so that we can do spontaneous trips like that. I mean, I know it’s technically possible with babies and toddlers but the logistics alone always preemptively drained me of my will to live. Traveling with the two of them isn’t exactly a soothing spa journey complete with a hot stone massage, but it isn’t quite the clenched-jaw white-knuckler it used to be, either.
I do have a question that’s somewhat related to the recent experience of sharing a small hotel room—for the fellow parents in the crowd, how do you deal with Extreme Kid Craziness? Riley and Dylan constantly get in this mode where they’re playing and giggling and having fun but the chaos and volume control is off the charts. They’re screeching and carrying on and generally acting like rhesus monkeys on bathtub crank, and I find myself saying the same useless things over and over: Come on, guys. Calm down, now. Hey! Guys! I’m serious, you two need to quiet down RIGHT THIS MINUTE! and eventually I yell at them or do the 1-2-3 thing and send them to their rooms and later they come out all contrite and it all starts up AGAIN.
It’s like they don’t even listen until I totally lose my shit, and half the time I am nearly crazed with frustration because they aren’t paying attention, and the rest of the time I wonder if I’m the one that needs to chill because jeez, they’re just playing.
I don’t think I’m wrong in wanting to be able to curb the insanity, but I sure can’t seem to find an effective way to do it. I’d like a solution that doesn’t involve my eyeballs detaching themselves from my skull with the power of my mighty bellow, so if you have ideas, I am listening.
Not that I can hear anything over this goddamned racket, that is.
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