The terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day at the park

This next post is about a weekend trip that our little family of five decided to take not long after my mom left. Some of you may have heard this story already, but bear with me. We still think it’s funny.

So, it’s a Saturday and Sterling and I decided to take our family out to Thacher Park – it’s the local national park up the ‘mountain’. We heard there was a little beach up there and a cool wood playground, so we figured we’d make a day of it and have some fun with our kids. We took Sadie along for good measure.

We get to our first stop and get out of the truck. It was a little museum about the wildlife in the area. Obviously we couldn’t take Sadie with us, so we tied her up in the bed of the truck. I had just finished feeding Brandon and thought he’d be happy enough if I put him in a sling and carried him. So, as I’m lifting him into the sling, I had him positioned just perfectly so that when he suddenly spit up, it all went right down the front of my shirt – inside and out. And this wasn’t your typical little baby spit up, there was a lot! I gasped and called to Sterling for help. He promptly reached in the diaper bag and pulled out the first thing he could find – a clean, extra pair of Cami’s panties.

I used that to clean off as best as I could, along with a few napkins from the glove box, and we go on our way into the museum, with me smelling like fermented milk. Gross. Well, we stayed there for only about ten minutes before Austin started throwing full force tantrums; the kind that only a two year old can throw. We were just about to leave when a lady came in and asked who owned the black truck with the dog in the back. We said it was ours and she told us that our dog was chewing on the back of the truck.

Really?!

So, we head out to the truck and sure enough, Sadie has put a row of teeth marks in the plastic rim of the truck bed. Fantastic. It’s even more annoying considering we’re going to try to sell that truck in a month or so. Sterling went on to the truck with Cami while I came along behind still carrying Brandon, and towing Austin who decided to stop in the middle of the road and drag on my arm, continuing the tantrum from inside the building. Any of you reading this who are mothers know the exact kind of tantrum that I’m talking about. They go limp as a rag doll and make you drag them unless you decide to stop, then they collapse on the ground wherever they are (even on a hot, gravel road) and proceed to scream and cause everyone around you to stare. Yeah, it was great.

Sterling came back and got Austin and we finally made it to the car and into the various carseats and seatbelts. As we pull out of the parking lot, Cami asked if we could still go to the park. That child has a mind like a vise. If you tell her something, she will hold onto that idea for hours and sometimes days to come. We decided that she had been very good, so we’d still take her to the park. And let me tell you, it’s a very cool park. They don’t make parks that cool out west.

We got there and Sterling spotted a port-o-potty and asked Cami if she had to go. She’s been potty trained for awhile, but she gets so distracted playing that she doesn’t realize that she has to go until the very last second and then she’ll make a beeline for the bathroom. So we’ve gotten into the habit of asking if she has to go and sometimes forcing her to go sit on the toilet.

Cami said that no, she didn’t have to go, and followed me onto the playground. We made it about five steps before she turned around and announced that she did have to go potty, so I told her to run to Sterling and he would take her. She made it about halfway to him before she peed her pants. The best part of this is that usually we keep an extra pair of panties for her, but remember what I used to clean off the baby spit up? Yeah. Couldn’t have worked out worse.

So, let’s recap. Brandon spit up all over me. Sadie chewed up the back of the truck. Austin was throwing major temper tantrums. And Cami peed in her pants. All four of our kids acting out in different ways in the space of two hours. Awesome! Doesn’t that just sound like the best day! Unfortunately, I’m sure there are some of you out there who just shrug and think ‘that’s a typical day at my house’. If you’re one of those: I’m sorry. I truly, truly am.

Despite it all Sterling and I were in a good mood and rather enjoyed ourselves. It was nice getting up into the ‘mountains’ and being able to see the horizon for once. They had an amazing look-out spot up there. Worth the drive and the horrors of the day just for that. It was beautiful.

Here’s a few pictures from the playground. It really was cool.