Non-adventures

My husband always tells me that I need to be more adventurous, or at least that I should be more up for adventures that involve taking our children on trips. And I agree—in theory. Then, I start thinking about the planning and packing that is involved in even an overnight venture for our family... and I start to get a little light-headed. But I told my husband I would try.

This past week was my company's convention. Usually, this involves me being gone for three or four days and A staying home with the kids. But now we both work for the same company. While I was heavily involved in the preparations for convention, my husband's presence was more necessary at the actual event. And with most of my husband's family either involved or attending as well, babysitters were few and far between. So I volunteered to stay home the whole week. That was a weird role reversal, in and of itself.

On Friday night, I started to feel kind of caged at home. So, I got a crazy idea to go up with the kids on Saturday (the older three went to see the Lion King musical and loved it), hang out at the convention, spend the night, and all come home Sunday morning. I think my husband was surprised that I suggested it, but he was excited to see us. We hoped to be able to use a nearby hotel room that was part of a family block, so we'd have two rooms total, but we figured we could even make it work with one.

As I was packing on Saturday morning, I kept thinking, "This is a bad idea; this is going to be chaos. Why are you doing this?" But I pushed on. We even had to go to Costco on the way up cause I only had like five diapers left.

It was fun to see the convention center all decked out with company stuff and filled with distributors. But spending the afternoon chasing the twins out of every random, sometimes dangerous, nook and cranny was a little tiring. And then we went to the hotel room and the twins climbed on the bed, climbed on the table, licked the bathroom soap, turned on the radio alarm, whined about TV shows, and on and on. With it looking like we would only have one room, I quickly realized (don't know why I didn't figure it out before) that two portacribs really could never fit in there. Not to mention the fact that A2 is the lightest sleeper on the planet and would wake up if one of us breathed wrong.

And so, I began to panic. And then cried a little, wondering why I had attempted something so ridiculous. And then I decided to back out of it. My husband kept the three older kids overnight and I carted the twins, their stroller, and my suitcase back down to the car and went home.

So, what do I do about future excursions? Do I wait until the twins are older so it's not such a huge production? Or, do I get over myself and just barrel through it?

But hey, at least I got to meet Kelly Clarkson. That was cool...