My husband is taking the week off of work so we can have a Staycation.
Days of fun amusement parks, local activities for kids, matinee movies, Brooklyn pizza, Central Park Zoo, maybe even an overnight somewhere if the mood for a family road trip strikes.
This Together Time sounds all lovely and amazing, until I start thinking about The Popsicle Detonator.
Fact: The more fun you make your kids’ day, the more likely they will lose their shizzle at the end of it over the Just One More Thing they want.
One more ride. One more friend. One more show. One more damned popsicle.
What goes UP must come DOWN. Then start crying hysterically in the back seat because 6 hours riding every ride at the amusement part while stuffing their faces with treats must mean your parents hate you.
For example, you may start your day with a few hours at the pool. After lunch, you head home to make cookies together and have friends over to play. You rent the kids’ favorite movie, enjoying popcorn & cookies. That afternoon, you hit the playground for an hour after a dinner of pizza and Rocket Pops.
On the way home, all happy and ready for bed, you pass an ice cream truck, playing its’ dastardly tune.
The kids ask for popsicles.
You kindly say “No” while reminding them they just had some with dinner.
The kids FREAK THE HELL OUT, weeping, whining, screeching about how they NEVER get ANYTHING they EVER ask for.
You feel unappreciated and get mad.
Now everyone’s yelling.
BOOM!!!
Great day? Ruined.
By that Just One More Thing they wanted.
(Stupid Ice Cream Trucks and their stupid delicious popsicles…)
Sure, as the SAHM I’m used to driving the kids home from the most Awesome Summer Camp/Play date/Museum Visit EVER, only to have them ask “What are we doing now?”
But my husband isn’t.
He is a normal human being who thinks that one big super fun activity should be enough for one day.
Clearly, the kids disagree with this preposterous concept of common sense.
So while it’s great to have him around for a week of opportunities for me to eat cotton candy and fried dough and candied applies new family memories to be made, I dread the likely arrival of The Popsicle Detonator.
Like a pair of weeping blisters from new summer sandals, I know it’s most likely our awesome days will end in tears over the one more…whatever.
I just hope I can keep my cool – and Husband’s – when the backseat turns from a Happy Place Where Satisfied Kids Sit to a holding cell for rabid monkeys hell bent on a banana crack fix, since we’ve waited patiently all summer long to have this special week with Daddy.
Maybe keeping myself high on cotton candy for a week will help me tolerate the potential mood explosions in the back seat. (It’s worth a try, dontcha think?)
Or maybe I’m just over-thinking, and my kids will rally all week long, without a single back seat tantrum….
*Snort*
Yeah – that made me laugh, too.
Hahahaha good luck with that! My kids don’t really do that anymore, mostly because I’ve become such a stick in the mud that they preface everything with, “You’ll probably say no, but…” even if it’s a request for an apple. They freak out with gratitude if I take them to the library. Not sure if that’s a parenting Win or Fail.
They are pretty good all day long about my “No”s, but it’s that last one of the day that just kills everything…sigh…
Well….. they shocked you at swim lessons, right? It COULD happen. Keep those positive vibes flowing.
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True! Optimism…optimism…optimism…
This happens all the time at our house… they always got to push it.
I just don’t get it. Well..I DO get asking for one more thing, but why that very last NO of the day has to be met with wild freak-outs? Beyond me.
This is EXACTLY what I was talking about when I threatened to feed my kids to the zoo lions! It’s inevitable, like death and taxes, and I find myself utterly deflated every time it happens. It will eventually stop happening, right? RIGHT?!
It HAS to stop happening eventually.
My 7yo is a lot more laid-back than my 5yo, so I’m hoping that in the next 2 years it will dwindle down to nothing. *crosses fingers*
Yes!! Oh my gosh, yes!! This was us in Maui.
Everything is great, you think it’s enough, and yet there is always something, to send them over the edge.
ARGH!
It’s getting better now that they are older. But this is why Disneyland is hell with little kids.
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We had SUCH an awful time at Disney a couple years ago, that I refuse to go back for at least another year or two. Not until my petite daughter can ride some rides. I will not deal with screamy shit all day long. Not at the price of those tickets!
Ahhh the galloping greedy gimmies!
If you haven’t (but most likely you have, and your children are just as evil as my own daughter and this lesson will mean nothing to them, like it meant nothing to her, the eleventy billion times I’ve forced it upon her (and counting) …. you know, just in case that’s not the case for you) you should read:
The Berenstain Bears Get the Gimmies
http://www.amazon.com/Berenstain-Bears-Get-Gimmies/dp/0394805666/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346080893&sr=1-1&keywords=the+berenstain+bears+get+the+gimmies
Clearly these bears are better parents than I — it didn’t work for my kid!
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You know, they aren’t too bad throughout the day (my 5yo is worse than my 7yo, of course…). it’s just that last NO of the day that makes everything go BOOM. Blech. I hate that last no of the day…
We put DVD-players in the back seat just for occasions such as these. Turns ‘em into catatonic zombies – just how we like ‘em in the car! =)
Kristen Mae recently posted..Cabinet Slammers and Screamers
Hmmm….maybe you’re onto something here…
My daughter does this too. For her, the problem is often overstimulation. Too much excitement, particularly when lots of transitions are involved, wears out her always-fragile self- control. Have you thought of removing one activity from your days-full-of-awesomeness?
The days are soooo looooong…limiting fun to one thing is not enough to entertain 2 kids for 12 hours. Gah.
Instead of a cotton candy high, may I recommend a bucket full of cotton candy martinis??
Good Luck!
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Not a bad recommendation!
YES! They are ungrateful little punks, aren’t they? And you are preaching to the choir about the freaking ice cream truck. I HATE THAT TRUCK. It always comes around right before dinner and ruins whatever fun we were JUST having outside. And, I usually tell my kids that even if the ice cream man shows up at the pool, that doesn’t mean they are getting any, so they better not cry about it. And they say they won’t. Then they do. EVERY. TIME.
I hear you, sister. Have fun on your staycation!!!
Ali recently posted..I Stalked a Journal. It Broke My Heart. And Changed Me as a Mom.
He is so ill-timed and over-priced.
Why not come at 10am or 4pm? WHY NOT?? Why not make everything under $3?? WHYYYY???
Seriously! When is what we do for them enough? When will they stop and say, “mom, you’re awesome cause you did all this cool stuff for us. We are now content to sit quietly and read for the rest of the night.” But NOOOOO.
The other day, I took my kids to the toy store to use up gift cards and out for ice cream after. Awesome, right? Wrong, they argued the whole time. No good deed goes unpunished! Mother’s Day should be like 4 times a year.
Steph at Im Still Learning recently posted..I am a work in progress
I up that 4 to 6. BOOYA.
Dealers should offer optional black out boxes for the back seat of all SUVs and MiniVans providing next to no see-out option for the kids. It would be a BIG seller.
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I’d upgrade in a heartbeat.
Good luck! And, well, sanity is overrated anyway.
Annabelle recently posted..Trifecta: Antiquated
Exactly.
(Thankfully)
“Fact: The more fun you make your kids’ day, the more likely they will lose their shizzle at the end of it over the Just One More Thing they want.”
OMG. Yes. This just happened yesterday. Annie and I had a “Mommy Day” before her first day of school. Trip to Build-A-Bear to spend a gift card, lunch with daddy, ice cream stand, home to do crafts and watch a movie. Then at the end of the day she’s all, “You SAID I could color this BEFORE bed! I wannnnnaaaaa color!!!”
Seriously, kid? SERIOUSLY?
The only thing that would have topped off the madness is if the ice cream truck showed up then and there.
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Yes, seriously.
I know I am late to this party (I had you liked on facebook but didn’t have you on my google bloggy thing – GASP! Corrected now!) Anyways, I LOOOOOVE this!!! This totally hits it! I start screaming about how some kids have to sit in the back yard all day with no swings or trampoline or pool or popcicles, or ANYTHING! Then they have to do chores and they dont even have a TV, much less every new release blue-ray on the market…..and my kids get to go camping and to parks, and day trips, and weekend trips and one thing after an effing nother, but all they can do is piss and whine and moan about that ONE LAST LITTLE whatever!!! UGH, I swear, it is the reason a stop at the last gas station before home for a 6 or 12 pack is usually our last stop! (then they explode cause they cant get a gross bug juice or candy – because we don’t have 2 tons of candy and the cookies we baked the day before at home!!)
YAY for being the mommy!
Devan
I think all kids have short term memory loss once they hear the music of an ice cream truck. Gah! The torture!
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I missed this when you posted it originally. Then someone else posted it to my FB page in response to my update about my bad, bad, bad kids on the way home from a fair. Like always, it’s perfection. Way to boil it all down to the roots. The phrase “popsicle detonator” will be on the minds of parents everywhere on the road home from some very expensive family outing.
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I was going to email this to you after your post, but then LOOK SQUIRREL!