Another story by Mr Jayden. These are the kind of stories that I get to listen to all day long, in between all of his why questions…

What better things are there to do when you’re sick, than find a box and put it on your head?

Willow is one funny girl…

Oh, wait….that last one isn’t Willow…. :)

Yesterday, we headed up to Kansas City to hang out with our friends who live up there and stay at the Great Wolf Lodge.  We had so much fun!  I was a little worried about the kids in a hotel room, but I figured even if they had trouble sleeping, we were only going to be there one night, so it felt like I could handle it, knowing we were just going to go home and that it’s easier to deal with the crankiness when they can yell and act-out without us trying to control them in public.  Little did I know that Royal was going to be the problem at night, not the kids….  Willow didn’t take much of a nap in the car on the drive up to KC, so when we were still all playing in the water park around 7, I figured I’d take Willow up to our room and get her bed set up and maybe get her to sleep without too much trouble before Royal came up with Jayden.  Willow went to bed with little fussing, and then Jayden came up and got ready for bed.  He was so worn out from swimming and so excited that he got to “stay the night at the Great Wolf Lodge?!?!?!”  and “in the same room as mom and dad?!?!?!”  that he pretty much crawled into bed, read a couple of books to himself, and then tucked himself in.  We shut out the lights a little before 8, and really I was pretty glad to have the excuse to go to bed so early, I was tired.

We had this heater in our room, a typical hotel heater that was super loud, but pretty much blocks out all the other noises going on in the hotel.  It doesn’t really bother me, I can just shut it out as white noise and go to sleep.  Royal on the other hand, is VERY sensitive to noise and lights and whatnot and even while we are at home he sleeps with earplugs in because he can’t stand to hear the refrigerator running, or an ice cube dropping, or a car driving by, or a bug hitting the window, or the wind, or anything else like that.

Around 8:30, Royal is like, “Are you asleep?”
Me: “Well, almost”
Royal goes, “How the heck can you sleep with that jet engine in our room?”
Me:  “It’s not that big of deal.  I just block it out.  And now I am going to go to sleep.  Don’t you have your earplugs in?”
Royal: “I forgot to bring some”   (uh-freakin’-oh)
Me: “Bummer”
I probably could of been more sympathetic, but it’s not my strong suit and I was tired and Royal was keeping me awake…Royal continues to toss and turn and toss and sigh and turn and sigh and toss…Finally he’s like, I’m going to go turn it off.  He creeps across the room in the dark, because the heater is by where Willow is sleeping, and I hear him hitting buttons and little beeping and stuff and then he’s back in bed and the heater is still on.

Me (jokingly): “Couldn’t figure it out?”
Royal (not jokingly): “It won’t shut off.  How the heck am I going to sleep with that jet engine in our room?  I’m going to be up all freakin’ night”
Me: “Why don’t you try putting some rolled-up toilet paper in your ears?”
Royal:  “It doesn’t work and it just annoys me”
Me: “I think I might have a couple cotton balls, you want to try those?”
Royal: “This is stupid!  You pay this much money to stay here, I DEMAND perfection.  I will NEVER be back!”

So now I started panicking a bit because when Royal says stuff like that he’s not kidding, and he doesn’t change his mind easily, and the kids were having so much fun, and I wanted to come back, but not by myself…  So, I convinced Royal to go down to the front desk, ask about the heater, and see if maybe they have some earplugs there or something.  Royal comes back to the room, even more flustered.  He said that they’d have to send maintenance to come check it out, but that he told them not to bother since the kids were sleeping.  He had in his hand, though, a little box of earplugs.  Not earplugs for noise though, earplugs for keeping water out.  And obviously they didn’t work too well, because 10 minutes later, he was waking me up again, complaining about the heater.  I told him if he was really this unhappy, to go downstairs and tell the front desk about it.  Ask if they had a room that he could have that didn’t have a broken heater, or maybe they could refund him some money.  I said hotels are all about customer service, they are going to try and keep you happy, especially hotels that are all about kids, they want you to come back.  So, Royal puts his pants back on again and heads downstairs.   After a few minutes he’s back and tells me that they said they had to send maintenance first before anything else, and that he also told them that they’d have to try and fix it without making any noise and they could use a flashlight because he wasn’t turning the lights on since the kids were sleeping.  So, a maintenance guy shows up, creeps across the room with Royal and in like 30 seconds has the heater turned off, and leaves.  Guess there was some switch (other than the on/off button on the top of the heater that Royal tried) that was hidden underneath the thing that shuts the whole thing off.  Thank goodness it wasn’t super cold outside and we weren’t trying to maintain a certain temperature in the room or anything, because we would of ended up freezing so Royal could sleep.  :)  Royal came back to bed in a MUCH better mood and I think feeling a little silly at how easy the problem was to fix, and also  wondering why the heck they couldn’t of told him about the switch in the very beginning.  He kept trying to joke around with me, but since it was 10 o’clock now, and I was now really tired, I told him to stop talking to me and go to sleep already (I get cranky when I’m tired).  So, I rolled over and started to fall asleep in our now quiet room.  Ahhhhhhh….sleep…..And then,
Royal: “How long do you think Jayden is going to snore like that?”
Me: “Ugh!”

Other than that, though, we had so much fun in the water park!

The camera spent a lot of time in the stroller this go-round….

This is Jayden’s best friend, Noah, and his sister Joyce.

Happy Birthday, Jordan!  And I know I told you that I’d delete these pictures and I swore I wouldn’t post them on my blog on your birthday….but….well….I’m a liar.  :)

We miss you Jordo!  Come back and visit us when it warms up some!!!  :)

Jayden and his dino have pretty much been inseperable since Jayden got him on Christmas.  Except for at night that is, Dino is not allowed to sleep in Jayden’s room.  Royal tried, one night, to put dino in Jayden’s room and Jayden promptly came out 15 minutes later, carrying Dino, and said, “Dino can’t sleep in my room.  He keeps waking me up”  Bad dino, bad!  Dino must of been trying to get back at us for having to hide in a black plastic bag in the guest room closet for so long.

Jayden taking care of Dino while he was “sick”

Jayden and Dino watching a show

In the first time in what seems like forever, we have no visitors here, no visitors coming for at least another month, and no plans to go visit anybody.  We’re all alone.  It’s borrrrring.  Guess I’ll have to figure out how to take care of the kids by myself again.  It was so nice to go to the grocery store alone, be able to do some shopping during the week, have free babysitters to watch the kids so me and Royal could go do something, have someone else read the same book over and over again, someone to answer all of Jayden’s questions, someone else to help Willow eat so I could eat some food at the same time.  Oh well, I’m sure me and the kids will figure out how to play with each other again.  :)  And I guess it will leave me more time to post more pictures of the kids for you!
On our first day on our own again, we didn’t really do too much.  Jayden and I read books in bed until Willow got up.  The kids took a bath.  Jayden and I talked again about Papa and Nana leaving and that Jayden had no reason to be too worried that Papa wasn’t going to have anybody to play with, and that no, I wasn’t going to drive him to the motorhome so Papa wouldn’t be lonely.

Jayden did take care of his dino today.  Supposedly he came down with a “bug” and was sick.  He spent a good deal of the day in Jayden’s bed.

Willow has mastered a new trick too.  She finally figured out how to stand up in her crib.  It’s only a matter of time before she starts launching herself over the side and waking me up at the crack of dawn.  She still isn’t walking, but I’m not too concerned over it.  No need to make her mobile and fast too soon!