A 4th of July to remember…

So with it being the 4th of July holiday this week, I thought I’d share an everlasting memory of trying to be the spontaneous, carefree, “fun” mom… It was the week of 4th of July, and my oldest daughter was out on her own, with plans for the holiday. My oldest son was gone on a trip with friends of mine. It was just myself, and my 3 remaining kids. That dwindled to 2 kids, after my then 15 year old daughter decided it wouldn’t be cool to hang with family over the 4th of July. So, I woke my 2 boys on the morning of the 4th. I told them to pack a bag, and grab their swim trunks. We loaded into the car and hit the road, with no plan of where we were going. I’m a planner, so this was very uncharacteristic of me to just fly by the seat of my pants. I told the boys they had to decide where they wanted to go, within a 4 hour radius, by the time I hit the exit to get on the interstate. The Wisconsin Dells it was! We’d never been there, but knew so many that had, and heard nothing but stories of fun! Due to holiday traffic, our 4 hour drive turned into 6, but that’s ok, we’d just head straight to the huge water park to start our adventure. Upon arriving, I realized that the 4th of July may not be the best time to hit a massive water park. We were joined by approximately 25,000 others who did not realize I was trying to be carefree and spontaneous. I had instant anxiety, as I had to have my 2 boys in my eyesight at all times. Within 60 minutes of arriving at this water park, I lost a kid. He’s my independent child, and seemed to believe he’d be just fine out exploring on his own. With my youngest son in toe, I searched for what seemed like an eternity, but after 30 minutes, found my other son. I stayed calm, cool, and collected, as I was trying to be spontaneous. Hours of watching my kids like a hawk, and water slide lines of 200 people was fun, but it was time to head to our water park resort to continue our fun. Heading out to the parking lot, I realized I had no clue where I parked. The place was massive, with thousands of cars. Over an hour later, I found the car. We were hot, tired, and I had cried….but we were going to be carefree, so the journey continued. The kids didn’t want to stop at a restaurant to eat. They opted for a drive-thru so we could get to our resort and enjoy the waterpark there. We grabbed some fast food and headed to our resort to eat. Upon arriving, I had the boys grab their bags, and I grabbed mine, along with our bag of fast food. As I headed to the front counter for check-in, I was looking back at my boys, and didn’t realize someone had left an empty infant carrier in the middle of the lobby. I mean, that’s a good place to leave your car seat….As you can imagine, I tripped over the carrier, and our entire bag(dinner) flew all over the lobby. I gracefully picked up my dinner to deposit into the trash, and proceeded to the front counter. I’m carefree, I’ll get us our room and order a pizza, no worries. As I am giving them our confirmation number of our reservation(that I made on the drive up) they inform me that the waterpark at our resort is under construction, and we can only use the pool. It’s okay I thought. We had a waterpark all day, we will just enjoy some pizza and a pool. We unpack, order dinner, and head to pool. Boys are pumped. To our surprise, someone else had enjoyed the pool as well. A toddler (I hope) who perhaps couldn’t make it to the restroom, and left some floating surprises in the pool. At this point, I have lost my kid, lost my car, lost our dinner, and finally lost my mind. I realized on this vacation, that I am not carefree and spontaneous. I am a planner. I like to have an itinerary and know exactly what to expect. The kids and I packed up and headed home the next day, and have forever labeled our Dells vacation as the “worst vacation ever”. Lol. My takeaway? You can only go up from here. Can’t wait for our next adventure!