We had a mere 3 days to get back and recoup from our great weekend with Pat's folks and then get ready to fly to my folk's in Dallas. I cashed in some FF miles and decided to semi-surprise my family and make a long springbreak trip to hangout with my sis and family as well as stay the longest time span that we have had in a long time. We could stay 11 days because we decided that Daddy could stay home and get some grant work done and get a little break since mommy gets girls weekends occasionally.........This apparently was our downfall decision! :)
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Nick was so excited to go see his cousins. He talked about the trip constantly. The day we left he got his backpack ready and strapped on his "cup holder" so he would have a drink on the plane. I love my boy's creativity!
He is probably going to invent something great someday or come up with the next Wonder Hanger (story to follow)
This boy loves to travel. We are so blessed. He was so thrilled to be on the airplane (first ride since Kaz).
We had an uneventful trip with the exception of the hour circling of Dallas and a very, I mean very windy landing. We almost ran out of gas and had to divert but thankfully they let us land...crazy! Nick slept thru it all!
Nick was so happy to see his cousins Zach and Lyndsay. We had a great playdate at the park with Conner and John Ross who happen to be the grandchildren of friends that my mom went to high school with in Oklahoma! Small world! Their son and daughter in law are close friends of my sister and Brother in law. We also had a great time at John Ross's birthday party towards the end of week. It was science-themed with experiment stations. Nick loved it! He still talks about the magnets. Below, all the boys are trying to help Nick get into the baseball spirit.
We have finally convinced Nick that he is too big for the baby swings but he still is learning to pump his legs for the big swing. Good thing cousin Lyndsay was there for the push!
Nick went with Gma and Ata to their friend's farm to see the baby chickens and another place to visit a baby goat. Their neighbor and church friend's grandson also attended this particular field trip.
As you can see by the boys' coats that we did not have "typical" TX weather for springbreak. It was cold and windy, windy, windy!
Toward the end of the trip, when I was about worn out from all of the conflict, we had a great playdate of sorts with my friend from STL and college, Mary Kay and her girls. They are older than Nick but they are going to make some Rockin Babysitters! Reagan and Kamryn ran him all over the park and he carried on running dialogue with them that just cracked us up. Kamryn being the younger of the two girls was especially tolerant of the gabbing. Nick proceeded to tell her all of the opposites that he knew.....big, small, open, shut, etc, ad nauseum. The moms got to talk for quite a stretch although we were freezing to death! Just wrong in TX!
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So now on to a more narrative interpretation of the trip.......UGH! that is the short story, the long story is as follows:
1. Several days into the trip, Nick began exhibiting very poor behavior. Hitting, biting, screaming, unrelenting attacking of the mama, etc. We had not seen some of these behaviors since early homecoming days. Around this same time, he started making comments about missing his daddy. Heart wrenchingly sad statements every morning when he woke up like " I miss my daddy", " I dreamed about my daddy, I miss him so much", etc. He was not sleeping well at all and was crying that he was scared every night. He usually doesn't sleep well in a hotel but we hadn't really had problems at the grandparents house before then. He talked to daddy everyday but this did not seem to help. He was cranky and bossy with his cousins at times and generally was very unpredictable. I had to cancel all plans to see college friends, work friends and other cousins. I just was afraid to go out alone. He was very hard to handle in stores and even threw a few fits in the car. It was very hard on both of us as well as my poor parents. We had just been home for Christmas and he did awesome so besides daddy not being with us, we couldn't figure out what was triggering this behavior.
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2. Funny now story #1 -- after one particularly hard bedtime where he was refusing to stay in his room and screaming at me like crazy, I had to walk away for a minute. So I went to the family room. He was still pitchin a fit but hadn't followed me which he usually did. Mom and dad had just come home from church I think (nice welcoming environment) and Mom had sat down with me to ask what was going on. It had quieted down at this point (which is also scary) and I hear him coming thru the kitchen but he doesn't enter the FR. I see his little hand come from around the door with a picture of the three of us from Pat's sisters wedding. He just sits it on the floor. At this point, I am about to burst into tears because it really seems that he is traumatized because he does not have his family unit and it is all my fault (you know, mother guilt) and he proceeds to grab the picture, power run into the room and stand right in front of me and scream/preach at me about how he wanted me to look like in the picture (we are assuming he meant the family and even the smile on my face). So, he rants at me for what seemed like 10 minutes. Pointing and screaming, Screaming and pointing. He said I had "ruined his sleep time" and he wanted me to be happy like in this picture. It was quite a site. My mom and I got so tickled ( I was half crying) and we were trying not to let him see us but I was just speechless. He put Ky backwoods preachers to shame. It was so disturbing and so funny at the same time....weird! Needless to say, I took him to his room and gave him lots of extra hugs and backrubs to try and calm him down and then in the morning, "I miss my daddy so much" and towards the end of the week, "I want to go to my house" started coming out.
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3. This is a quick one but he is intrigued by infomercials. I can't recall the place (probably the car) but it was still out of the blue that Nick announced that we REALLY needed some Wonder Hangers so we could hang up our clothes and we needed the automatic toothpaste dispenser. It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about because I had not really realized he understood and/or cared about commercials but yep, he is going to be a target audience for QVC! He said another one the other day but if I don't write this stuff down immediately, I can't remember it by the time I sit down and blog or FB.
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4. Our last funny now story from Springbreak happened on our way home. The Atlanta airport is one I usually avoid like the plague but frequent flyer tickets do not care where you prefer to fly so we arrived at the airport for our layover at the end of one terminal....of course, we needed to go to another. So basically we hiked over to the next terminal and ate dinner. We arrived at the gate to see that we had been moved to the far end of another terminal. We arrived at that terminal and waited and found out we would be delayed. The captain came on the speaker and said we would not wait further for this plane but that he and his crew were headed over to another terminal (the one we arrived in) to take another plane. AND, yes, it is bedtime by now and Nick doesn't want to walk to another terminal. Thankfully, a dear nurse friend of mine from the working days saw us on the underground train and was happy to help me coerce/pull/ drag (literally) Nick across the airport. Thanks Temi! So they board us and we get to our seats where Nick proceeds to Yell LOUDLY to the flight attendant who was still helping everyone get seated. HEY! LADY!, HEY! LADY, HEY LADY, I NEED SOME WATER, I AM THIRSTY, HEY, HEY, and on and on. So as I tried to quiet him, he proceeded to grab my face in a pinch/grab hold that I could not extricate myself from without blood and so I just let him squeeze until he gave up. Being a mother is hard ...that's all I have to say about that. I knew that he was so exhausted that some how I just calmly got him to gain control of himself ( I know everyone around us was panicking about what was ahead) but as soon as I calmed him and the plane began to taxi out to take off, he fell asleep! I think I was probably shaking at this point but I held it together. The Flight attendant brought water by and you better believe I held onto that water until we began our descent. I woke him up and gave him that water before I had to give up the cup and prayed that we had diverted any other meltdowns. He was so excited to see his daddy that nothing could upset him once we got off the plane. You never saw such a happy boy....Daddy, Daddy, I missed you so much! as he ran to greet him. Pat was almost strangled by the hug hold! We were BOTH really happy to see daddy! As we drove home, he was exclaiming, my home, my home! I have a great home! Good to know we have definite attachment and a sense of family and I will never go anywhere without Pat again! I felt bad for my family because I really didn't want to do anything with him acting like he did. Luckily, he loved hanging with Auntie Kelly and she was able to keep him so my folks and I could go get shopping done. It was a good shopping trip overall but quality fun time was limited .....bless his little heart. It has taken him almost 3 1/2 weeks to recover from the change in schedule/event?? He is finally sleeping thru the night again and not talking about being scared and he has been behaving well (most the time) and seems to be back to our "normal" little 5 year old. whew!
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5. A few quick funny Nick-isms that I Facebooked but wanted to blog here for posterity's sake!
- In the car... Mom, do you know Jesus? He is the son of God!
- sitting at the table.... Mom, tell me about your childhood.
- outside playing little tikes baseball (me pitching, him swinging and missing ).....MOM! you need to take lessons on how to get the ball to hit here (pointing to the bat)!
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Wow, sorry this was a long one....so much to catch up on! Mom, Dad, Kelly and Family...we love you so much and promise we will be back soon but not without Pat. Thank you for trying to make it a good springbreak for all! :)
