Today we made another day trip from our home outside Atlanta to my home state of Alabama, specifically Rainbow City where my uncle now lives, to see family for Easter. Side note: I decided against wearing my Jesus Has Rizzen t-shirt to the festivities because I do actually love my family and the vast majority are super religious and I didn’t want to offend them, even though it is a FIRE shirt (see below).
We’ve got Oded Fehr (rawr, am I right?) Jesus slaying on electric guitar, and Harlequin Romance Book Cover Jesus. All hits, no misses.
ANYway.
We do these day trips fairly often, even though it means a lot of driving for me and a lot of time in the car for the kids. We are many, and as such we are hard to accommodate, and staying in a hotel with four kids is super stressful, and about half the time I’m the only adult present and it’s just A Lot™. So we do it all in one day. It usually goes the same way. Lots of rushing around to get out the door, some yelling, cursing my way through Atlanta traffic, a stop for bathroom or fuel or caffeine which devolves into snacks and drinks for everyone and probably a little hushed yelling, arriving and piling out of the car, wondering when my mother will show up to said event, then wondering if she will even make it there before we have to leave to drive back home, deciding it’s time to go, herding children into the car, a little more yelling, cursing my way back through Atlanta traffic, and finally arriving home and unloading. Even on our best days it’s stressful and it feels like everyone is angry and we are straight up not having a good time. I tell myself that I won’t do it again, and I always do. Because I’m crazy.
Today was no exception. But I also had the added delight of my husband going on the trip, and his mood is WILDLY unpredictable, which means STRESS! I work overtime to manage the children so that he doesn’t get riled up about something or other, to varying degrees of success. We also decided to bring our 15-week old Siberian husky, who we just adopted from a rescue last weekend, because she is too young to be crated all day. She did great, thankfully, and so did my husband. We left full of food and Easter candy and love.
When I put the twins to bed tonight, my daughter gave me a big hug and said, “thank you for today.” I told her that I was so happy that she had a good time, and she replied that it was a really great day. You know what, it WAS a really great day. We got to see people we haven’t seen in a long time, spent the entire afternoon playing outside, absolutely stuffed ourselves with ham and green beans and sweet potato casserole and baked beans and pasta salad and mac and cheese and coconut cake made with 7-minute frosting just like my great aunt Linda used to make it. And I got to love on my momma, who I haven’t seen in person since my dad died.
I always worry that I’m traumatizing my kids on a daily basis. That they’ll only remember the times I lost my temper and yelled or literally turned the car around and went home or didn’t let them get the giant bag of goldfish crackers and a Red Bull at the gas station because we were LITERALLY on the way to eat. I worry that I am too hard on them and simultaneously too lenient with them. Will this time that I don’t let them connect to my hotspot in the car be the breaking point that sends them on the path to a life of crime, or will they look at me from behind plexiglass and shout into a corded phone that I should have never let them have a cell phone in the first place, etc. It’s wild in my brain, y’all.
But thankfully I don’t think they remember things the way I do. They remember the jokes we told in the car, a sibling falling asleep and drooling, playing baseball and soccer and pickleball at the park before the food was served, goodie bags from Grandma, and spending time with aunts and uncles and cousins galore. I’m really glad that they are appreciative of the little things, and that they give me more grace than I give myself.