Love, Learn, Play: California Adventure- Day 31

Well, I’m not quite sure how to reflect on today. For the first time since we’ve been here, everything has gone wrong. Really it’s the first time anything has gone wrong and when it rains it pours, so I guess it’s only fitting. I think Jon and I underestimated how exhausted we all still are from Disney yesterday, and I also think we underestimated how emotional today would be for all of us. And after being with me for the last 11 years, Jon can tell you with 100% certainty that exhausted and emotional are just not a good mix. Apparently that goes for the boys as well!

Our plan was to hit one of the boys favorite skate parks one last time. So when we all woke up, we had an easy breakfast and headed downtown to Lafayette. Unfortunately there was a bit of a different crowd skating there today than there was the last time we were there. Fortunately the boys weren’t really digging it either and wanted to leave before they got a contact buzz. Jon wanted to try to salvage something from the trip so we hiked across the park to the playground but it was much too hot and we only lasted there for a few minutes. Then we wanted to hit Johnny’s Pizza for lunch and luckily that worked out relatively well. On the way home we needed to swing by Diddy Riese in Westwood to pick up some cookies for our agent and managers. The boys were miserable the whole way there. It was naptime but they were too excited about Diddy Riese to fall asleep though I think they got drowsy enough at one point to blow our chances of nap for the rest of the day. At Diddy Riese they had significant difficulties listening which resulted in the loss of their cookies and things just went rolling downhill from there. They took turns screaming and crying about one thing, then another, then yet another. They were so unbelievably exhausted but refused to fall asleep. So we cried about who was sitting in which car seat, about who was driving, about where we were going, about leaving California, about not leaving California. Heck, we even cried about who was crying! Jon and I refused to give in and give them their cookies, and after an hour or so it didn’t even matter anymore because we had crossed the point of no return. I don’t even think cookies could have saved us! At one point we were seconds away from stopping to give the damn cookies to the next homeless person we passed by. Eventually we were able to make all of our deliveries. We just wanted to say thank you to all of the people who took a chance on the boys and ended up guiding our trip out here in the first place. And although we almost self-destructed in the process, we finally succeeded in delivering 4 dozen Diddy Riese cookies! We did not, however, succeed in getting a nap.

Once we got back to the condo, the boys did a bit better with some unstructured free play time. But Jon and I had to bust our butts to get packed up in time. We had a LOT of work to do. Somehow we had acquired all sorts of new stuff… buckets and shovels and assorted sand toys, beach towels, sweatshirts, Pluto pillow pets, two stuffed Mickey’s , and a few other odds and ends. Plus we had to clean the condo and return the pack ‘n plays to my friend Michele down the street. It was an unbelievably hectic two hours but somehow we managed to get it all done with only limited meltdowns.

And then the real fun started. Because the woman we rented the condo from is still in England, a friend of hers came over to return our safety deposit and take the keys. We were in the process of trying to get all 9 of our bags out into the hallway so she could close the door behind us when the boys made a run for the elevator. They did this multiple times a day, literally every time we left the condo- they would run ahead to the elevator and wait in the little vestibule until Jon and I caught up. Since we were moving bags, the woman sent her daughter (who was probably 8 or 9 years old) ahead to watch the boys. Two minutes later she came running back exclaiming, “I can’t find them mom!” And when Jon and I dropped everything in our hands and ran down the hall, we realized that the boys had done what they had managed NOT to do for the entire month… they got on the elevator by themselves. Jon raced to push the button thinking that the door would open and they would be right there, but the elevator was already down to the parking level. It was on its way back up, but Jon bounded down three flights of stairs while I waited for the elevator to see if they had stayed on and come back up. When the doors finally opened, they were nowhere in sight. By the time I could push the door closed button I could hear them starting to cry. I knew they must have pushed “P” for parking since that was the only button we ever pushed and I knew that once they got out into the little vestibule down there, there was no way they could get out into the actual parking garage… but it was still terrifying. I was screaming down to them that mommy and daddy were coming, and in between the first floor and the parking level, I heard Jon get to them first. They were quite terrified and traumatized, but perfectly fine. Luckily their path was predictable and once they were down there they were contained in that small area, but it was still so scary. We gave them a firm but brief lecture about NEVER getting on an elevator alone, but it was quite brief because we were all so scared and just thankful to all be together. When they finally calmed down, Caleb said, “But mama, I didn’t push the red button! Those are only for firefighters!” I guess our twice daily discussions over the last month had finally sunk in J

The good news about it all was that we were too rushed to get too emotional about leaving. Once we recovered our little escapees, we lugged all 9 bags down to the bat cave, packed them all in the car, and left for the airport. It was 6:00pm and without a nap, the boys fell asleep instantly. Which meant they would wake up crabby when we had to drop the car off and also that they were very unlikely to fall asleep at a decent hour in the airport! But there wasn’t much we could do. So Jon and I had the entire ride to the airport to reflect on our trip and take in the city one last time. There were lots of tears. I don’t think either of us expected Los Angeles to feel like home in just one short month. But it did. And I don’t think we expected the boys to grow so much. Or for our family to grow and change so much. But they did. And we did. So it was hard… really, very hard. Small parts of us wished we could stay. There was a small part in each of us that wished the boys could really stay and work the LA market. To show the world just how amazing they really are. And there were big parts of us that wished they could stay and keep skating the LA skateboarding scene. But we both knew that even if we stayed, we couldn’t re-create our experience. It was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity and we had to walk away knowing we made the most of it and that we’d ALL had the time of our lives.

Of course waking the boys up to return the car was miserable. Then at the airport they got a second wind and got a bit silly, which made getting through security a bit stressful. And waiting for 2 and a half hours seem even longer than it was! But we finally got on the plane just before 11:00pm. The boys weren’t the slightest bit tired and it took all we had in us to get them to sleep. I think they finally fell asleep at what would have been 12:30ish California time. They each slept for nearly three hours. I don’t know about Caleb because he was in front of me with Jon (who got about two hours of sleep), but I can tell you that Matthew certainly was comfortable… he had two seats all to himself! I had the tiniest sliver of my own seat. Certainly not enough for both of my butt cheeks. For awhile I tied to sit on just one butt cheek with my legs stretched out on the edge of Matthew’s seat, but it wasn’t long until my entire leg went completely numb. And by numb I don’t mean that pins and needles feeling you get when your foot falls asleep. I mean totally numb as in I could feel my brain sending messages down to my leg telling it to move, but I literally couldn’t feel that I had a leg at all! Needless to say I didn’t get any sleep at all. Four hours later, seven if you count the three hours we magically gained in the air, we landed in Detroit at 6:30am. We were all so far past exhausted it wasn’t even funny. But we were all so happy to be home.

Last skate on the Happy Star at Lafayette