I didn’t know when I woke up that morning that by 2pm I’d be lying in a crumpled heap on the floor of a hotel room sobbing uncontrollably. Mothers never know these things when we wake up. I actually had thought the weekend might be better than most, since we were going to the Grand Hyatt in down-town Seattle to stay for a few nights while Russell attended a work conference. There would be various entertainments in the evenings for the adults, and child care provided for the children during those times. Plus three days in a ritzy hotel! What a fun little vacation!
I should have been tipped off when the packing for our two night getaway comprised as much luggage as a two week trip out of State. That’s just how it is with kids. Once we had gathered cribs, blankets, strollers, clothing for the children, alternate clothing for the children (in case of accidents), tertiary outfits for the children (because let’s be real here, how often do they just wear two outfits a day?!), diapers, wipes, bibs, burp cloths, bottles, sippy cups, pacifiers, toys, plus some clothes for Russ and I and a book for me (oh the poor naive fool that I was!) we were out the door and headed towards down-town Seattle. (Which really is a very fun fun place, despite what you might read in the rest of this account!) We pulled into the valet parking area (since our big Montana car was too tall to park in the self parking) and bell hops started piling the cart high with diaper bags and baby bjorns to help us to our room. Once the checking-in was done, we sent our luggage on to our room while we walked (or rather, chased Brielle) to the conference room where lunch was being served.
Immediately we realized that we were out of place…..actually not “we”, Russ was fine in his business suit, notebook in hand. It was me in my spit up covered T-shirt holding a crying infant and chasing an overactive toddler that was out of place. Not because of how I was dressed (well, not only that), but because other than an occasional working woman, I was the only mother and my kids were the only children in the whole room. We backtracked to the table where we had picked up our name badges and asked where the families were, and a nice lady directed us to the sixth floor where a spouse and families hospitality room awaited us.
Unfortunately it wasn’t much better. Sure there WERE other mothers in this room, but they didn’t have any children with them. (What would that be like!!) And they were immaculately groomed, so I still felt out of place! Russ helped me get food on a plate for Brielle and then left to attend his luncheon. After helping her for a few minutes and making sure she wasn’t going to cause trouble, I made myself a sandwich with my left hand while holding Hyrum with the right. Due to teething Hyrum has been pretty miserable lately and demands round the clock holding, he doesn’t GET it however and so in the rare moments when he is not being held he makes his dissatisfaction emphatically clear. Not wanting to irritate the nicely dressed spouses chatting at one of the four tables set up in the hospitality room (the room was only set up to accommodate 20 people, which seemed a bit odd after seeing the few hundred employees in the conference room downstairs.) I decided to hold Hyrum rather than letting him cry. I had just taken my first bite of lunch when the fire alarm went off. Immediately Hotel employees were everywhere directing people to exit the building. And since you can’t use the elevator in the case of fire, that meant we had to use the stairs. At this point I was grateful that I wasn’t in my room on the 24th floor, but not quite grateful enough to override my annoyance at having to hold one child on each hip as I trotted down the six flights in a throng of unhappy people. (Brielle couldn’t walk down stairs fast enough to keep up with the hotel’s escaping masses.) After an interminable wait on the streets of Seattle, wrestling an adventurous 2 year old and clinging to Hyrum as he flailed and writhed, we were allowed to re-enter the hotel. Immediately the guests from all 30 floors headed towards the elevators, so once again we had to wait. By the time we returned to the hospitality room Hyrum was ready to eat and he was telling me this with a loud and inconsolable wail. Instead of eating I had to bounce Hyrum up and down as I urged Brielle to finish quickly, but she kept asking for more. As she worked her way through a fourth piece of ham I gathered up Hyrum’s car seat, all of our coats, my purse and the diaper bag. I turned around just in time to see Brielle spill her soda all the way down the front of her. The fashionably dressed women all clucked their tongues sympathetically as I grabbed a sopping Brielle and a screaming Hyrum, plus all of our things, and made my way to the elevators which were still busy after the recent fire alarm. Ages later the doors finally opened and I squeezed the three of us onto an already full elevator and pointedly ignored the stares as my baby wailed and my two year old shouted “Let go me! Let go me!!!”
We got off on the 24th floor, and I dragged the kids around the halls looking for our room. By this point I felt like I had run a marathon, the sweat popping out on my face from carrying 60 lbs of baby and gear while struggling to keep hold of Brielle (I couldn’t let go of her because she wanted very much to push the elevator buttons, use the courtesy phone, and bang on all of the doors.) When we found our room, I learned that our keys didn’t work. I tried every possible way of using the key, but it wouldn’t open the door. The maids on our floor didn’t speak English and so couldn’t help me when I asked them what I should do, Russell was in a meeting and wouldn’t answer his phone, Hyrum was screaming and Brielle was running up and down the hall joyfully screeching and kicking doors, and I was too exhausted to make my way back down 24 stories to the lobby to sort things out. Fortunately the front desk still remembered us from check in and so they sent someone up to help me without my having to go down and show id at the check-in desk.
Our room was very nice; however instead of reveling in the luxury, I was worrying about the cost to replace each item. A fancy hotel room just makes it harder to watch a busy toddler. Instead of one phone to keep her away from there were three (one in the bathroom, one by the beds, and one on the desk) and there was a shower AND a Jacuzzi tub that she could turn on, plus more expensive decorations to tip over and break. Not finding a fridge, I placed a bag of breast milk in the mini bar, right between the Heineken and the Vodka (hoping the maids wouldn’t alert social services!); next I fed Hyrum, and then changed Brielle’s wet clothing. Picking up Hyrum I found a diaper for him then put him on the changing mat and realized he had had a diaper explosion all over the back of him and the front of me. I searched my suitcase and found that I had forgotten my other pair of pants; they were no doubt neatly folded on the foot of my bed at home. While changing Hyrum and cleaning up both him and myself I played a verbal game called “don’t touch that.” It goes like this: “Brielle put the phone down, no Brielle, get out of my purse, leave my epi pen alone! No Brielle, don’t hang on the drapes! Stop it Brielle, put all of the toilet paper back in the bathroom. NO, stop banging the closet door into the wall!! Don’t touch the mini bar, I’m telling you stop opening that fridge door! No, put the phone DOWN! Get off my back please. Stop knocking over the lamps!! No, no, no, get off the dresser!! Leave that phone alone! Don’t bang the remote into the window!! That’s a coffee machine Brielle, don’t touch! Don’t pull my hair! Put that shampoo back in the bathroom! Be careful, don’t step on Hyrum’s head!” And so on.
There wasn’t a lining in the trash cans (apparently trash bags aren’t fancy) so I had to wrap the soiled diaper in the complimentary shower cap before throwing it away. I changed shirts and cleaned up my pants to the best of my ability and at that point Hyrum started wailing because Brielle had rolled the ice bucket into his head. This was the point where I broke down. It wasn’t so much all the lousy things that had happened so far as much as it was anticipating the entire next day of watching two kids in that hotel room. And I was hungry.
Russ was done at 5pm and after a mere 20 minutes of helping me watch Brielle he was exhausted and asked if we could take the kids upstairs to the child care suite early. (There were evening events planned for the adults, with Child care provided for a nominal fee, nominal equaling about 40$ an evening)
And what was my reward for coming with Russell to the conference, what did we get to do on the first evening since long before Hyrum was born that we had to ourselves with no kids?? We got to go to Game Works, which is basically a Chuck E Cheese for grown-ups. So I got to spend my evening playing video games surrounded by hundreds of very drunk business men. Did I mention the open bar? Super fun perks! And we couldn’t even order a specialty drink without alcohol because we didn’t want any of Russell’s co-workers to think he was drinking (you know, avoiding the appearance of evil.) I would have much preferred reading my book in our quiet (with the kids gone) hotel room. Oh well.
That night was equally difficult, Brielle wouldn’t go to sleep, not in her crib or on the bed by her dad, she just wanted to run around turning on all of the lamps and she would scream when we stopped her, which would wake up Hyrum, causing him to scream at being awoken, etc, etc, etc….. We finally fell asleep around 11:30 pm. By 6 in the morning I had gotten up with Hyrum 5 times and I was so terribly tired. I told Russell that I thought we should sleep at home the next night, and he asked, in all seriousness, “why?” (No doubt because he had fallen asleep before either of the children and had slept very soundly throughout the night.) That day after breakfast I took the children home and watched them there, I cleaned the house and took them to the park, then I drove back to the hotel for the evening awards dinner. Putting the children to bed that night was much the same as the night before, and Brielle woke up at 6 am, woke her brother up with her yelling, and since we couldn’t get either one to be quiet long enough for the other to fall back asleep, we checked out and left early. By the time we got home, at 8 am, both children were soundly asleep in their car seats.
All in all, we survived the weekend, but just barely!
The Saturday before Easter we went to the zoo. They were having egg hunts for the kids, and the animals were given Easter baskets of animal treats. We met Russell's cousin Spencer there, with his wife Roma and their two children.
Brielle LOVES their little girl Cassandra. Cassandra is a few months older, and the two girls play so well together. They sat in our double stroller talking and giggling with each other and playing with the other's hair. When they'd get out to see the animals they would hold hands and shout "C'mon! C'mon!" And they'd wait for each other before we left the different exhibits. It was so cute to see.
