Day: April 16, 2007

Today I intend to be done blogging about our trip to Seattle. I just need it all to be done so that I can move on to other projects.

Hotel:
During our trip we spent two nights at a hotel. The kids really relished living in the lap of luxury. They grasped very quickly that nothing in the hotel was free. During the first evening Gleek inquired which of the things in the hotel would cost extra money to use. She asked about everything from the TV to the towels to the toilet paper. I was pleased that the kids were paying attention and trying to save money. The hotel room was a fairly spacious one. It had two double beds and then a little sitting area with a fold-a-bed couch. Howard and I took one bed and the kids doubled up in the others.

The kids loved the hotel. They loved snuggling into bed and watching cartoon network. They loved riding the elevators down to breakfast. They loved getting to make waffles and eating bacon every day. They loved leaping from bed to bed. They loved eating hot pockets heated in the room microwave. But more than anything else, they loved the swimming pool.

Each of the days that was stayed in the hotel featured a visit to this swimming pool. On the first day I got into my swimsuit and played with them. It was fun for all of us. Then we trooped back to the room and took turns washing off. The swimming had the added benefit of wearing the kids out so that they went to sleep easily. On the second day poor Patches was already worn out. Several days in a row of exciting activities will do that to a little guy. He fell asleep in the car on the way back to the hotel and remained asleep when I carried him upstairs. The other kids all begged to go swimming, so I carried sleeping Patches down to the pool and let him nap on one of the deck chairs. He missed the whole thing. I sat near him and wrote some of my thoughts while watching the other three kids splash and play.

The kids were sad to leave the hotel behind. I’ve had several requests to go back there again. Link in particular missed the hotel breakfasts. We’ve appeased him somewhat by introducing waffles into some of our weekend breakfasts.

Getting lost:
I do not think of myself as a person who gets lost. I’ve got a good sense of direction and before we took the trip I printed out lots of maps. Perhaps I should have expected to get lost in a strange city, but I found it extremely annoying that 3 out of 5 times that I got behind the wheel of the van, I had to call someone to help me find my way to where I wanted to go. I attribute the first two times of being lost to not having maps to and from the hotel. This is because I’d assumed that the hotel and the convention were the same location. I got lost driving from the hotel to the convention. Then I got lost driving from the Aquarium to the hotel. Both times it took me an extra 40 minutes to get where I wanted to go and I had to call our local friend Dan to help me sort myself out. The third time I got lost was due to having to make a split second decision about exiting and choosing wrongly. In that case it was Pi who gave me additional directions. Each time I did my best to remain calm about finding my way, but I found myself very angry about it. It took me awhile to figure out why.

I don’t mind at all letting people help me. I often decided that the best way to get something done is to ask someone else to help. But in these cases I decided that I was capable of driving myself and to be proven incompetent was infuriating. I like to be able to do things for myself. I knew that driving in a strange city would be a new experience for me, a challenge. I did not conquer the challenge the way I wanted to.

Movies in the car:
The drive from Orem Utah to Seattle Washington is about 15 hours long. That is a very long time for kids to sit still in the car. We managed it by making sure they got regular breaks and by throwing movie after movie into the DVD player. I even rented some new movies from Netflix so that they would have new material to watch. It worked really well. The kids were amazingly good. This was particularly true on the return trip when we didn’t stop over for a night at my sister’s house.

Watching all the movies was necessary to sanity, but I found myself wondering if by putting a stream of movies in front of them I was robbing my kids of a piece of the road trip experience. They were so intent on the electronic entertainment, that they hardly looked out the windows at all. I love watching out the windows and watching the scenery change. During this trip I found myself thinking about the pioneers who traveled the Oregon Trail in covered wagons. I watched the scenery and thought about how hard that trip would be. Occasionally I tried to draw my kids attention to things outside the windows, but mostly I did not want to disturb the quiet. I wonder if my enjoyment of scenery and thinking are a product of my childhood road trips which did not have movies. Will my children grow into contemplation of scenery or will it forever be foreign to them as they turn away from the windows toward screens?

The Shoe/Nap Incident:
On the Sunday afternoon that we were in Seattle Howard had to work the convention, the kids and I crashed at the Strohl house for a much needed quiet day. I even managed to sneak away downstairs and catch a nap for awhile. I was so exhausted that I didn’t even come fully awake when Patches crashed into the bed next to me demanding that I get up and help him put his shoes on. He wanted to go outside and play with the other kids. I was still exhausted and wanted to just lie still for awhile longer. I told Patches that I would be happy to help him put on his shoes if he would just go get them and bring them to me. Patches insisted that I had to get up right then and go help him put on his shoes. I offered him two choices, either he could wait for me to finish sleeping or he could get the shoes so I could help him without getting up. We were at an impasse.

Patches is frequently in the habit of making demands and throwing a screaming tantrum if the world does not align itself exactly as he pictures it should be. I get very tired of this. Despite my fatigue and mellow mood I decided I needed to take a stand on the issue. I’d given him two choices and over the next 30 minutes I did not waver on the shoe issue. I did attempt to snuggle him and tell him a story or to do any number of things, which I hoped would stop the screaming without me having to get out of bed. Patches would have none of it. He steadfastly refused to stop screaming unless I got out of bed to help him put his shoes on. He rebuffed all my efforts to be kind and loving.

Eventually Patches became so upset that he started crying for his blanket. After that shift I declared that I was now done napping and I got up to help him find his blanket. It wasn’t really a victory for either of us, but I figured that it was about the best that I could expect considering. A blanket and a snuggle and a snack turned the world around for Patches. And the remaining afternoon was pleasant.

I’ve thought about the incident since it happened. I’ve thought about how Patches steadfastly refused any offer of love/help that was not shaped exactly how he wanted it to be. How often do we do this? How often are we so disappointed in a gift, which isn’t what we would like, that we can’t see how much love went into the selecting of the gift?

During our 30 minute battle I tried to reach out in love to Patches many times, but because my love was not shown by me getting out of bed to put his shoes on, Patches could not see my love for what it was. He could not comprehend that I would show my love for him by teaching him that he can not always shout orders and expect people to obey his whims. It is perhaps too sophisticated a concept for a four year old, but I as an adult have no excuse. I need to be careful to make sure that I am open to expressions of love which are proffered in ways that I do not expect.