A Family "Vacation" - Part II

We couldn't hack the weekend. Let's just get that out there.

The intention was to drive to San Diego on Friday and go to the Wild Animal Park. Go to the Hyatt at Mission Bay and spend the night. Our first night as a family in a hotel. Then, wake up the next day, go to Sea World, head to the hotel whenever we were tired. Stay another night at our hotel and come back to our oasis in Pomona.

At around 9:30 pm on Friday night, our first night with three kids trapped in a hotel suite, I looked at my J and said, "want me to see if I can get us out of paying for tomorrow night so that we can go home after Sea World tomorrow?"

First, because he knows better, J coached me for 20 minutes on the fact that whether we could get out of paying for an extra night was irrelevant and lectured me on how I should talk to the front desk...because you know that I would have said "Yo, this hotel sucks, and you suck, and I wanna go home." Anyhow, I was able to call and finnagle us out of the second night and they waived our parking fees. Wasn't that nice? Aren't I so capable? Go me. An average mother...an above average negotiator.

Now, lest you think that the experience was a nightmare. It wasn't. The boys were actually boys. I was just done. Well done. And really, I would not have survived the second night. We had a good time at the WAP. We got to the hotel. We went to the pool. Juju went down the pool slide so may times...he would say "Again" before he even hit the water. We splashed and played. We ate dinner at the hotel - they actually ate fairly easily. We got to the suite that I had outfitted with two cribs and a roll away bed. Oh, and that is where the fun began.

Don't get me wrong. I had crazily low expectations about how the night would go. No illusions of sleep even entered my head. The boys were all together in one room for the first time and it was actually kind of funny. Lulo would yell about how he was trying to sleep and they wouldn't let him. The twins were pushing my buttons telling me they were poopie...but of course, they weren't. But, then, Juju was. Then Juju was singing "Last Christmas" by George Michael. And then Jojo joined in just to sing the word "special". Special indeed. Then, Luk had to pee. Then, they all wanted to get up and it was anarchy. Then, I had a mental breakdown that I am certain Room 2106 heard and J explained to me that I really am not fit to be a mother.

Then, I ended up sleeping on the couch in their room until everyone crashed. First, Jojo, then, Lulo, then Juju. Juju kept messing around asking Lulo if he was awake or not and the first 12 times Lulo would say "MOOOOOOOM, Juju won't let me sleep". OMG, they can never share a room. An evening like this is not likely to repeat for at least a year or twelve. There is no way I am doing this hotel nonsense again.

I was so gross from the heat that day and gazelle petting and what not and I couldn't shower because I didn't to want to wake up the kids and reignite the shenanigans. I couldn't really talk to J above a whisper. I couldn't get internet access on my crackberry. Vacation my ass...my nerves were raw, I was tired, my wine bottle stashed in my duffel bag was just too far away, my feet were dirty and there weren't any of my disciples around to wash my feet, the poopie diaper was making the whole room smell and I couldn't locate a plastic bag without making noise.

It was then that I called the hotel from the balcony to negotiate our release. Lulo woke up at 4 am to pee and I brought him into "our" portion of the suite as partitioned by a sliding door. He had a total cow about the rubber lizard he was sleeping with and wanted me to obtain it from the room with the twins. So, there we were arguing about a rubber lizard at 4 am. There was no way, on God's green earth, that I was going to sneak into the twins room and wake them up to find his rubber lizard. No way.

Anyhow, bottom line. We came home after Sea World and for the first time, we got off the freeway at Fairplex, I saw that grand Ferris wheel turning in front of my house, I saw the Pomona hoodlums, walking down the hill...and I smiled. I heart you Pomona because you aren't the Hyatt and we all have our own rooms.