I’ve decided recently that writing blog-type posts relaxes me. So here I go again with this humorous little take on our recent fishing-expedition with our two youngsters. I also touch on my insight to how I personally try stay to optimistic and enjoy my kids despite all the chaos!
I recently went on a 3 day, 2 night fishing-trip with my main man and my 2 littles. Let me preface this entire subject with the fact that fishing is my husband’s passion, and although I lack any true skill, experience, and/or technical knowledge in this sport, I actually really like partaking. For the last three years we have experienced significantly-limited-fishing-time due to creating previously-stated children, so my engineering-type personality sat down in January with a spreadsheet and scheduled all vacations, including 7 family fishing trips, for 2016.
Well, I’m a firm believer in the concept “Make plans, God laughs,” but we started executing this plan accordingly, first with a day trip to practice with the kiddos (cleaning up logistical-type issues, and storage/space checks). This practice, although not perfect or free from tantrums and craziness, was much smoother than anticipated, so we jumped right into the next trip—-a weekend fishing extravaganza…Really, just a couple days down at the Lake of the Ozarks in a little fishing resort…we don’t get out much.
So, to speed this blog along and get to my main point, I wanted to take time to list the “rough patches” of our trip…this is not to be negative, just to capture a bit of our humorous struggle:
1. One hour into the drive down to the Lake, we blew out a tire on the trailer, resulting in the girls having to sit up on a hill on the side of I-70, as my husband was horizontal on the traffic-side of the highway changing this darn trailer tire.
2. During the tire-changing situation, my husband also found a stud missing on the trailer, which needs repair.
3. We journeyed out on the water a couple times a day, and during each journey, we had to say, “Charleigh (3 year old) stop touching/hitting/bugging your sister” at least 20 times/hour.
4. During each journey out, Chayce (1 year old) had a meltdown each time Charleigh touched/hit/bugged her.
5. During each journey out, we had to put Charleigh in time out at least 1/hour.
6. During each journey out, Chayce had at least 2 full blown-teething meltdowns lasting 10-30 minutes until she passed out in my wrap.
7. During each journey out, Charleigh loudly shouted that she had caught a baby-fish and pulled her bait out of the water to kiss her minnow 43 times/hour.
8. During every single hot fishing-streak, where my husband and I started pulling in fish rather quickly, one of our kiddos would have a meltdown requiring adult intervention, and ending said-streak.
9. Each time we were within close proximity of other fishing boats with lots of camoflauged men onboard, our kids would either (a) have a major meltdown, or (b) honk the horn unexpectedly, resulting in us receiving the “why would you bring loud kids out here” glares from our neighbors.
10. During some of the chaos onboard, my husband stepped on one of his poles and broke it.
11. During some of the chaos onboard, I stepped on my sunglasses and broke them.
12. Our 3 year old could not keep track of her pole/line. She was constantly wrapping the fishing line around our feet, our infant, the equipment, and the steering wheel. Eventually, she wrapped it around the trolling motor and broke the motor—-ending our trip.
13. After getting home, we started unpacking and my husband accidentally dropped the minnow bucket and broke it.
14. A couple hours after we got home, got everything unpacked, and got the girls fed, cleaned and put to bed, I took a 3 hour bath. Around that time, my husband found our water heater leaking (I took the fall for that oneJ).
So, anywho, just like a woman, on the way home from the trip I asked my husband if he had fun. As you can imagine, I didn’t quite get the warm & loving response I was wanting, when I so thoughtfully put these fishing trips on our calendar so that my man could enjoy his favorite pastime in the company of his girls. And it got me thinking—-about our internal timers. Let me explain.
I honestly can tell you, I had the best trip down to the Lake. It was wonderful and exhausting, but I loved it. Although I’m not going to list them all, there were so many beautiful moments and first-time-milestones with the girls, that it just made the trip so special. Just to note a few of these moments: (1) watching Charleigh pet and/or kiss every single fish we caught, (2) seeing Chayce respond with absolute glee (holding hands in a touchdown position and laughing with an all-teeth-showing face) when Kevin would drive the boat fast, (3) showing the girls ducks, turtles, herons, snakes, deer, squirrels, etc., and (4) getting to witness how a trip to a big arcade is on the same fun-meter as Disneyworld to a toddler (and a husband).
But after reading about all of our “rough-patches”, one could certainly understand that if someone asked us how our trip went, it might be easy to say, “Well actually it sucked the life out of us, and we won’t be going back”.
Well, see this is where readjusting your internal timer might come in handy. My toddler has an attention span of about 2 minutes for any particular task. And I think as a parent, it makes sense to get on the same rhythm, or at least try to. In my daily life right now as a momma of these young’ens, I am constantly having to discipline one minute, and the next minute adjust my mood to being super-happy and loving. I feel like I’m on an emotional rollercoaster every day in order to match the emotional rhythm of my girls—I am quite manic really. The constant ups and downs are insane! And if my husband comes home after a long day, and asks me, “How was your day?” I can tell you it would be easy to summarize the whole day by stating all of the negatives, because the negative moments are often overpowering.
However, I try to look at each trip, each day, each project, each meal, in tiny little toddler segments. For example, I went to church this morning, with my toddler, and as a whole I would give the outing maybe a D based on lots of talking, dancing in the aisle, fake-bathroom trips, etc., where a normal human would then hold off taking the toddler back to church in the future. But if you look at that church trip in toddler-segments, the first part of church was rough getting the rules to stick & waiting for the excitement to wear off. However, the last half, Charleigh snuggled in on my lap, holding my hands, lightly rubbing my arms, and kissing my fingers. This last half of church made my whole day, and will be a cherished memory from here on out. So, undoubtedly I will be bringing her back to church as often as possible.
So this brings us back to our chaotic fishing trip—-overall, it might get a rating of D (especially if you ask my husband after calculating the costs of all the needed repairs)— meaning, the trip was a bust and we should cancel all the remaining planned trips. BUT, if instead you shrink it down to toddler-segments, you realize how many unbelievably sweet & sacred moments there were onboard (like the moments I talked about above), and you realize there is no way you would miss a chance to go fishing with these rascals in the future!
I’m sure everyone can think of parents who will refuse to go to ____ (fill in the blank)____with their kiddos because when they think back to the last experience they had, it was exhausting and terrible. Well, honestly, each and every moment throughout the day with emotional little basket-cases (aka toddlers) are going to be riddled with rough patches. If you don’t allow yourself to feel joy with each high, because it feels like the lows are outnumbering the highs, then you will wish time away and quite literally lose your mind. So, this is my solution for enjoying my time with my little terrorists and feeling positive about each day I get to spend with them.
To me, it’s all about readjusting my timer to toddler segments. I brace for shock with the tantrums and try to let those suckers roll off me like water off a duck’s back! And then when one of those sweet, lovable, happy moments show up, well I just hold on for dear life!