digsite

The Weekend:
All in all, our weekend went well. We got to meet my brother’s wife and their daughter. My stepmother and them came up, spent the night, we had a nice morning with breakfast a-la stepmother. The kids played, fought, played, fought.. We went to the Palm Beach Zoo, then we drove south to the Miami Seaquarium. I’d say the experience was a mear “OK”, though, because both parks had some level of drabbiness and neglect that’d make us stop and think “god that sux”. Dirty tank waters, trash dumped in various places. sigh… But we got to spend time together, toddler tantrums and all.

By the end of the day I had a huge headache from the sun and from dehydration and I was h-u-n-g-r-y! We dropped them back off at my grandmother’s at 6pm and we could have just kept driving home but I stayed because, like I said, I was h-u-n-g-r-y! and my grandmother and/or aunt always have food to offer. I ate like an animal and had 2 very tall glasses of water. Even my very picky 3 year old ate like crazy. My 5 month old drank a bottle and a half of milk and she entertained everybody for the next hour with her babbling baby cuteness.

About 2 hours later we packed up, said goodbye to everybody, and headed home. I was STILL feeling dehydrated so we stopped at a gas station and got a huge bottle of cold water, and some sweets. Yes, I was craving sugar too. After this I got REAL tired. We got home just before 9pm. Dh put daughter #1 down and I fed daughter #2 then I just went to sleep. For someone who normally goes to bed at 2am even on work nights, 10pm was REAL nice. My headache is mostly gone this morning but not completely. I still feel a telltale ache over my left eye.

The Analysis:
So, I had to ask myself on the way home last night if all my fears, angst, whatever from the past couple days was warranted? Probably not. But I had to go through all of that to get to the point where I finally just stopped worrying enough to relax and enjoy everything.

Sadly though, despite having had a pleasant weekend, I still managed to find something to nag at me last night.

My daughter had given their daughter a necklace she got at a birthday party. It’s just string with some foam animals and beads on it. She put it around her neck and as we were leaving, her mother said to her “listen that’s not yours, you need to give it back now they’re leaving”. As her daughter started whining and protesting, I said to her not to worry about it and let her keep it. After about the second time I said it the mother turned around and told me “I don’t put those things on her”. Meaning that her religion doesn’t allow people to wear jewelry. This is my grandmother’s religion too and I went to the church with them every saturday for years as well, so I’m no stranger to this rule. I had just forgotten and really didn’t put 2 and 2 together.

I knew she was adventist and my brother had met her at their way to an adventist church, but I just didn’t really beleive they were adventists… My brain just hadn’t made that connection for some reason, I dunno.

I’m not sure why that bothered me… I later thought that maybe she was annoyed at me/us because her daughter had been wearing my daughters beaded necklaces a few times already that day. Now that I think of it, though, I think the annoyed person was me. Here’s a person who seems strong willed. She knows what she wants, she’s got her beliefs, her morals. She’s strict with her daughter too from what I’ve seen. Maybe I’m annoyed that I’m not consistent with my daughter.

I’ve got to think about that one some more.