Friday night we stayed in New Hampshire. About a month or so ago I saw that Laurie Berkner was going to perform at the Capitol City of the Arts. Waverly adores Laurie. When she isn’t begging to listen to her music she is begging to watch her music videos. Her third birthday is the end of this month so I thought it would be such a great surprise to bring her to the concert.
Traveling with three kids under five years of age when not a single one is fully toilet trained makes things slightly interesting. I had to pack so much shit “just in case” for ONE NIGHT. I had six outfits for Egan. Waverly had at least three. Gannon had a few as well. We had diapers and pull ups and wipes and underwear. There was the obvious things like toothpaste and toothbrushes. I also had to bring floaties so they could swim in the pool at the hotel. Not to mention snacks and water bottles and coats, hats, mittens, and one pair of extra shoes. It looked like we were traveling for an entire week.
The ride there was brutal. We had to stop after an hour because everyone was miserable. We drive a truck so we have three kids in car seats in one backseat. When anyone is crying or fighting or talking loudly or yelling it is unbearable. At one point Waverly and Gannon were arguing over what pretend song was playing from their car seats and who was to touch what “button” to make the new song play.
I wanted to gouge my eyes out.
We stopped for bagels at that hour mark. Luckily the police officer who watched me rip my child out of the cab of the truck and squeeze his face while telling him to cut the shit didn’t seem too fazed that I was losing my mind.
From the bagel shop we went to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center. The kids loved this place. They didn’t want to leave but unfortunately the bagel stop put us an hour behind schedule so we only had about an hour and a half to spend before they closed. They loved this game where they had to save the Earth from asteroids. There was an interactive exhibit where once a button was pushed a ball was dropped into water and a video was recorded of the impact. Egan loved exploring everything. My favorite part was the infrared screen.
From here we grabbed some dinner at The Common Man restaurant. The service was wonderful, the food was delicious, and our waitress became Gannon’s new best friend. It was a great exerpience. We finally made it to our hotel, got settled in, and the kids were asleep by 7:00. Unfortunately the sleeping wasn’t great for the adults. We were up, worried about kids falling out of beds, Egan cried a bit, and Waverly coughed until she was gagging. It was almost 1:00 before I was able to fall asleep. The kids were up super early, as usual.
We got breakfast, went back to the room and got ready to splash in the pool. Well, Paul and the kids splashed in the pool. I don’t own a bathing suit so I observed. It was nice to see the swimming lessons paying off though. I think the pool was their favorite part of the trip.
While the kids were finishing up swimming I went back to the room to pack our stuff and get Waverly’s present out for her. She got a new birthday shirt, a new pair of leggings, a superhero cape, and of course, the concert tickets. She was not really excited about anything. I was cranky from not sleeping so I was being slightly mean to my poor husband who could do nothing that wasn’t annoying me. Gannon was being a pain in the ass. Egan fell asleep thirty minutes before we needed to leave.
When it was time to go Waverly and Gannon were miserable. They wanted to stay at the hotel and couldn’t care less about going to the concert. I was so disappointed. I put so much thought and effort into this trip to make it special and fun for them. I was sad and became more cranky.
We had to walk a bit to get to the venue and boy, it was cold. Everyone was complaining. A woman overheard me screaming at Gannon because he would not get out of the truck. When we started walking it wasn’t any better. When we got inside it was awful because of the crowd of people. We bought them M&Ms to make them happy. That worked for a few minutes.
When Laurie finally came out Waverly’s face made me cry. She was confused by the whole event but when she saw Laurie:
She enjoyed the concert but wasn’t as excited as I had anticipated. She danced a little but mostly sat watching, just like this. She knew all of the songs played and a couple of them were her favorites. About half way through the concert, they threw beach balls into the crowd. It was the first time Gannon was excited during the show. His face lit up and he began talking excitedly about hitting one. We were in the balcony and there weren’t many in our section. They didn’t last long either, most ended up on the lower level. Not one ball made it over to us. Gannon was so disappointed he started crying and didn’t watch the rest of the concert. I felt terrible for him and it was a hard lesson for a kid who was already having a rough day. Once the concert ended I was more than ready to begin our journey back home.
Thankfully the ride home was better than the ride there. Gannon wanted to watch the GPS as we were driving so I held it where he could see the map better. He loved watching our route, following the road, and telling us when a river was coming up. He watched all the way until we reached our driveway. It felt good to be home.
Last night while Paul was lying next to the kids for bedtime Gannon told him about his disappointment over the beach balls again. He asked if he could have a beach ball for his birthday and if we could see the Okee Dokee Brothers concert.
One night away. Lots of stress and lots of money. I’m recovering today. Overall the trip was sort of a failure and I probably should have saved our money. There are a lot of factors that would have made it more enjoyable, one of which is warmer weather.
Lesson learned. Waverly still loves Laurie Berkner and will most likely remember the concert for a while. I hope to hear her talking about it in the coming days so I know she truly did enjoy it and it wasn’t a total waste.
I’m hoping our potential camping trip in July will go more smoothly. Or maybe I should cancel that while this memory is fresh in my mind.
