This week was a little weird for me. Maisy went off to camp on Sunday and then on Monday me and the rest of the crew went with my mama to Chicago. It was a wonderful surprise vacation put together by my wonderful mom, it was also much needed.
Vacation with children. Oxymoron, yes?
Yes.
It was fun all the same.
We had many adventures. Thanks to the kindness and hospitality of my little sister Lydia and bro in law Brett, we always had a place to stay and fun places to visit...and extra hands to help with lots of children.
I found some things out about myself while in Chicago:
#1: I am a 50+ creepy foreign man magnet. If any man over 50 is in the area, and speaking in a language other than English, and he's super icky...he will be attracted to me...and he will shamelessly flirt with me. Even when he's watching his children at a park. #awkward.
(this bothered Wyatt A LOT. "Mom. That guy is checking you out...CONSTANTLY. I'm gonna kill him.")
and the second thing that I realized about myself shouldn't really surprise me at all. After all, I've been struggling with math for years.
#2: I can't count (and neither can my mom or sister).
The fact that Maisy wasn't with us should have been an easy math problem. 4 kids subtract 1 equals 3...right? Right. (right?...still unsure).
But for some reason we were thrown off all week long. We managed to answer people correctly on Monday when they asked, "How many kids?" We all answered 5 (my sister has two children) and only paused a little bit, each of us nodding for reassurance.
By Tuesday we were beginning to doubt our math. "How many kids with you today?" We would all stop for a second. Think and say, "Five?" And wait for the person checking us in to confirm.
Wednesday however found us lacking all math skills completely.
This could be because on Wednesday we spent a lot of time walking about, herding children, and walking some more. Like a lot. Like miles.
We started the day at IKEA where I managed to once again attract a creepy foreign man in the deli. I'm not sure what he said to me, but I'm pretty sure it was something like "You look good for birthing lots of babies...you come with me on my BMW motorcycle and we will make use of those fine german hips." Or at least that's what it felt like what he said....I'm still washing off the ick.
After our day at IKEA we came back to Lydia's to arrange our travel plans to the city. We were going to go and hopefully accomplish: the Bean, Willis (Sears) Tower, and meet some old buddies of mine at Navy Pier.
We managed to make the Tower. Just the tower.
After that horrifying experience, in which I hyperventilated and begged the kids to get off the sky deck before they and I both died, we started to head to Navy Pier to meet my old friends Doug and Dave.
We were supposed to meet them at 6:00.
It was already 5:30.
We were miles away and on foot....with a questionable amount of children.
My fearless and smart sister Lydia directed us to a water taxi. We had some bumps along the way but we made it. We were practically running across Chicago to make the water taxi to take us to Michigan Ave where we would meet up with my bro in law and his friend Paul.
There was no time for sight seeing, no time for chatter, only walking and corralling.
At this point we could still remember all the kids names, but they felt like they were a herd of children. Like so many children that we couldn't possibly wrap our heads around the number.
We went down the steps, steep steep steps, to the water taxi. Mom and Lydia carried Guy's stroller and I could only think of the Untouchables movie....anyway.
Once we got down there the herd of children saw the water and were climbing all over the retaining fence.
I lost it.
We were already super late. It was now 6:00 and if you know me, you know that when I'm late...I FREAK OUT.
It's not pretty.
I don't like it about myself.
I really do though, I flip.
I was attempting to maintain composure, but I was pretty much losing it. And I screamed at the kids to "GET OFF THAT FLIPPING RAIL RIGHT NOW!" only the NOW part sounded like it was spoken by a 300 year old terrifying ogre.
They got off that flipping rail in a hurry.
While this was going on my mom was trying to figure out the automatic ticket machine, which does the following: nothing but take money.
It doesn't tell you a destination. Doesn't tell you ticket price. Doesn't do jack shit.
So mom was in the corner freaking out. I was in the middle of the room trying not to kill everyone and Lydia was on the phone with Brett attempting to figure out what the hell our next move was....
When mom says from the corner of the room, "How many tickets do we need? I've gotten to that point on this damned machine. How many tickets do we need?"
We all just looked at each other.
Math had failed us.
We stared at each other. Unable to count.
Finally a young woman on a bench said, "Well, how many kids do you have."
shit.
How many kids did we have?
We didn't know.
We knew their names...but their amount was baffling.
We just stared at her...begging for her to count them for us.
Finally she said, "five. You have five kids. So you only need to buy 3 tickets. Kids ride free."
We REJOICED.
Someone had told us the magic number!
We had five kids!
We felt like this heavy burden had been lifted from our shoulders as we piled into the water taxi, only to find out that kids do not ride for free.
But the nice young man working the boat took pity on us, perhaps having witnessed our math fiasco, and let the kids ride for free anyway.
We did manage to make it to Navy Pier by 6:45. I ran to my friends in a frantic manner....feeling terrible about being late.
But they were cool with it.
I think maybe they were feeling sorry for us...having just trekked five children all under the age of 10 across Chicago, unable to count them...it's a miracle we made it at all.
Mom, Lydia and I think that Maisy would have been with us we wouldn't have had a problem with numbers. We know I have 4 kids. We know Lydia has 2. All of a sudden me just having 3 kids completely screwed everything up.
I guess Maisy is the cog that keeps our wheels going and our math ability in-tact.
Thank God we pick her up tomorrow. I'm terrified I'm going to lose one of the kids now...simply because I no longer have any math ability at all.
Vacation with children. Oxymoron, yes?
Yes.
It was fun all the same.
We had many adventures. Thanks to the kindness and hospitality of my little sister Lydia and bro in law Brett, we always had a place to stay and fun places to visit...and extra hands to help with lots of children.
I found some things out about myself while in Chicago:
#1: I am a 50+ creepy foreign man magnet. If any man over 50 is in the area, and speaking in a language other than English, and he's super icky...he will be attracted to me...and he will shamelessly flirt with me. Even when he's watching his children at a park. #awkward.
(this bothered Wyatt A LOT. "Mom. That guy is checking you out...CONSTANTLY. I'm gonna kill him.")
and the second thing that I realized about myself shouldn't really surprise me at all. After all, I've been struggling with math for years.
#2: I can't count (and neither can my mom or sister).
The fact that Maisy wasn't with us should have been an easy math problem. 4 kids subtract 1 equals 3...right? Right. (right?...still unsure).
But for some reason we were thrown off all week long. We managed to answer people correctly on Monday when they asked, "How many kids?" We all answered 5 (my sister has two children) and only paused a little bit, each of us nodding for reassurance.
By Tuesday we were beginning to doubt our math. "How many kids with you today?" We would all stop for a second. Think and say, "Five?" And wait for the person checking us in to confirm.
Wednesday however found us lacking all math skills completely.
This could be because on Wednesday we spent a lot of time walking about, herding children, and walking some more. Like a lot. Like miles.
We started the day at IKEA where I managed to once again attract a creepy foreign man in the deli. I'm not sure what he said to me, but I'm pretty sure it was something like "You look good for birthing lots of babies...you come with me on my BMW motorcycle and we will make use of those fine german hips." Or at least that's what it felt like what he said....I'm still washing off the ick.
After our day at IKEA we came back to Lydia's to arrange our travel plans to the city. We were going to go and hopefully accomplish: the Bean, Willis (Sears) Tower, and meet some old buddies of mine at Navy Pier.
We managed to make the Tower. Just the tower.
After that horrifying experience, in which I hyperventilated and begged the kids to get off the sky deck before they and I both died, we started to head to Navy Pier to meet my old friends Doug and Dave.
We were supposed to meet them at 6:00.
It was already 5:30.
We were miles away and on foot....with a questionable amount of children.
My fearless and smart sister Lydia directed us to a water taxi. We had some bumps along the way but we made it. We were practically running across Chicago to make the water taxi to take us to Michigan Ave where we would meet up with my bro in law and his friend Paul.
There was no time for sight seeing, no time for chatter, only walking and corralling.
At this point we could still remember all the kids names, but they felt like they were a herd of children. Like so many children that we couldn't possibly wrap our heads around the number.
We went down the steps, steep steep steps, to the water taxi. Mom and Lydia carried Guy's stroller and I could only think of the Untouchables movie....anyway.
Once we got down there the herd of children saw the water and were climbing all over the retaining fence.
I lost it.
We were already super late. It was now 6:00 and if you know me, you know that when I'm late...I FREAK OUT.
It's not pretty.
I don't like it about myself.
I really do though, I flip.
I was attempting to maintain composure, but I was pretty much losing it. And I screamed at the kids to "GET OFF THAT FLIPPING RAIL RIGHT NOW!" only the NOW part sounded like it was spoken by a 300 year old terrifying ogre.
They got off that flipping rail in a hurry.
While this was going on my mom was trying to figure out the automatic ticket machine, which does the following: nothing but take money.
It doesn't tell you a destination. Doesn't tell you ticket price. Doesn't do jack shit.
So mom was in the corner freaking out. I was in the middle of the room trying not to kill everyone and Lydia was on the phone with Brett attempting to figure out what the hell our next move was....
When mom says from the corner of the room, "How many tickets do we need? I've gotten to that point on this damned machine. How many tickets do we need?"
We all just looked at each other.
Math had failed us.
We stared at each other. Unable to count.
Finally a young woman on a bench said, "Well, how many kids do you have."
shit.
How many kids did we have?
We didn't know.
We knew their names...but their amount was baffling.
We just stared at her...begging for her to count them for us.
Finally she said, "five. You have five kids. So you only need to buy 3 tickets. Kids ride free."
We REJOICED.
Someone had told us the magic number!
We had five kids!
We felt like this heavy burden had been lifted from our shoulders as we piled into the water taxi, only to find out that kids do not ride for free.
But the nice young man working the boat took pity on us, perhaps having witnessed our math fiasco, and let the kids ride for free anyway.
We did manage to make it to Navy Pier by 6:45. I ran to my friends in a frantic manner....feeling terrible about being late.
But they were cool with it.
I think maybe they were feeling sorry for us...having just trekked five children all under the age of 10 across Chicago, unable to count them...it's a miracle we made it at all.
Mom, Lydia and I think that Maisy would have been with us we wouldn't have had a problem with numbers. We know I have 4 kids. We know Lydia has 2. All of a sudden me just having 3 kids completely screwed everything up.
I guess Maisy is the cog that keeps our wheels going and our math ability in-tact.
Thank God we pick her up tomorrow. I'm terrified I'm going to lose one of the kids now...simply because I no longer have any math ability at all.
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