Wild Weekend

We spent our weekend in Salt Lake City. When we got to the hotel, David wasn't there. The guy at the front desk asked me if I was a relative. I told him I was the wife. He gave me a peculiar look and asked, "Is your husband expecting you?" It was the kind of look that said, "I'll stick up for him if he isn't, and he's up there with someone else instead." Very weird. But he let me use the front desk phone anyway. I couldn't reach David so the kiddos and I loaded up in the car and drove to Target to get some grub and some milk for Samantha.

After a three hour car ride, we all needed a bathroom break. Trouble is, Owen has always been afraid of public restrooms (can you really blame him?), and come to find out Samantha is too. They both cried the entire time we were in there. Drew wasn't afraid and he wanted to run around touching everything and pushing all the stall doors open. We finally made it out of there without a ton of germs on our hands, thanks to a Target employee who walked in just as I was trying to figure out a way to get out of there without putting my hand on the dirty door handle. She held the door for us and when Drew told her "Thanks" she practically crowed, "What a sweet little boy! So polite!"

We headed over to the snack bar and ordered some food. While we were eating, Drew kept scooting his chair back and dangling from the table. I kept telling him to push it in and if he didn't he'd fall on his head. Eventually my prophesy came true and Drew went crashing to the floor with a horrible thunk and scream. People stared and Drew cried and got pizza sauce all over my jacket, but he was just fine.

After our lunch we went to find milk and diapers. I found a display of Pull-ups at the end of the tampon aisle (just where I'd think to look) and a display of large boxes of Pampers at the end of the Depends aisle. The big boxes weren't really cost efficient, so I passed them up, and I kept walking the aisles finally coming to the conclusion that Target just doesn't sell diapers. We grabbed our milk and got out of there. On the way to our car I grabbed Drew's hand, and told him to grab Owen's hand, since my other hand was lugging Samantha in her carrier. Owen decided that he just had to jump in every puddle he saw. He let go of Drew's hand and fell on his knees just as a Jeep started to back up out of their parking space. I had to jump behind the Jeep yelling, "Don't go!" grab Owen, pull him dripping out of the puddle and lug him to our car. I was so frazzled by this point that I told the kids, "We're going back to the hotel and if your dad isn't there we're going home."

Luckily, David was back at the hotel. It was great to see him, but I got the feeling that we were sort of driving him crazy (by "we" I mean Drew and Owen). The boys were so hyper and excited to see their dad; they jumped around the hotel room and everything in the room had to be touched and inspected but it was all off limits to them so David and I were constantly saying things like, "Settle down. No jumping. Hands off the lamp. Stop smacking the TV, Samantha." It was a little nuts.

We ended up going to visit some friends; we followed them to a Carl's Junior where Drew and Owen could run wild at the play place while we chatted. It was probably the best part of the weekend. These are the friends who introduced me to David, and we hadn't seen them for about three years, so it was great to sit around and reminisce about old times.

We met up with another friend at her apartment and hung out with her and her girls. Her older girl is about six months younger than Drew and Owen, but she's a couple inches taller. She's also a lot feistier, which I found really amusing because Drew and Owen haven't really been around more dominant kids much. They're sort of the bosses in nursery because they're the biggest. Every so often Drew would come over to me and say, "That girl, he pushed me." And my friend would say, "Push her back." But Drew never dared to.

We didn't get much sleep over the weekend; Drew and Owen go crazy in hotels, especially when it's supposed to be bed time. They had to sleep on the floor because even though David was staying in a lovely little suite with a kitchenette, there was only one bed in the room. Sleeping on the floor for the boys means popping up every five minutes to say goodnight to Mom and Dad and Samantha, and to pinch Samantha's cheeks. Finally, close to midnight the boys went to sleep, but they woke up a little after five and every twenty minutes for the next two hours to make sure we were still there.

Sunday we went to my sister's house to hang out for a while then the kids and I headed home. Our weekend was zany and the opposite of relaxing, but it was a lot of fun as well.