Well, I’m not quite sure how to reflect on today. For the first time since we’ve been here,everything has gone wrong. Really it’sthe first time anything has gone wrong and when it rains it pours, so I guess it’sonly fitting. I think Jon and Iunderestimated how exhausted we all still are from Disney yesterday, and I alsothink we underestimated how emotional today would be for all of us. And after being with me for the last 11years, Jon can tell you with 100% certainty that exhausted and emotional arejust not a good mix. Apparently thatgoes for the boys as well!
Our plan was to hit one of the boys favorite skate parks onelast time. So when we all woke up, wehad an easy breakfast and headed downtown to Lafayette. Unfortunately there was a bit of a differentcrowd skating there today than there was the last time we were there. Fortunately the boys weren’t really diggingit either and wanted to leave before they got a contact buzz. Jon wanted to try to salvage something fromthe trip so we hiked across the park to the playground but it was much too hotand we only lasted there for a few minutes. Then we wanted to hit Johnny’s Pizza for lunch and luckily that workedout relatively well. On the way home weneeded to swing by Diddy Riese in Westwood to pick up some cookies for ouragent and managers. The boys weremiserable the whole way there. It wasnaptime but they were too excited about Diddy Riese to fall asleep though Ithink they got drowsy enough at one point to blow our chances of nap for therest of the day. At Diddy Riese they hadsignificant difficulties listening which resulted in the loss of their cookiesand things just went rolling downhill from there. They took turns screaming and crying aboutone thing, then another, then yet another. They were so unbelievably exhausted but refused to fall asleep. So we cried about who was sitting in whichcar seat, about who was driving, about where we were going, about leavingCalifornia, about not leaving California. Heck, we even cried about who was crying! Jon and I refused to give in and give themtheir cookies, and after an hour or so it didn’t even matter anymore because wehad crossed the point of no return. Idon’t even think cookies could have saved us! At one point we were seconds away from stopping to give the damn cookiesto the next homeless person we passed by. Eventually we were able to make all of our deliveries. We just wanted to say thank you to all of thepeople who took a chance on the boys and ended up guiding our trip out here inthe first place. And although we almostself-destructed in the process, we finally succeeded in delivering 4 dozenDiddy Riese cookies! We did not,however, succeed in getting a nap.
Once we got back to the condo, the boys did a bit betterwith some unstructured free play time. But Jon and I had to bust our butts to get packed up in time. We had a LOT of work to do. Somehow we had acquired all sorts of new stuff… buckets and shovels and assorted sand toys,beach towels, sweatshirts, Pluto pillow pets, two stuffed Mickey’s , and a fewother odds and ends. Plus we had toclean the condo and return the pack ‘n plays to my friend Michele down the street. It was an unbelievably hectic two hours butsomehow we managed to get it all done with only limited meltdowns.
And then the real fun started. Because the woman we rented the condo from isstill in England, a friend of hers came over to return our safety deposit andtake the keys. We were in the process oftrying to get all 9 of our bags out into the hallway so she could close thedoor behind us when the boys made a run for the elevator. They did this multiple times a day, literallyevery time we left the condo- they would run ahead to the elevator and wait inthe little vestibule until Jon and I caught up. Since we were moving bags, the woman sent her daughter (who was probably8 or 9 years old) ahead to watch the boys. Two minutes later she came running back exclaiming, “I can’t find themmom!” And when Jon and I dropped everythingin our hands and ran down the hall, we realized that the boys had done whatthey had managed NOT to do for the entire month… they got on the elevator by themselves. Jon raced to push the button thinking thatthe door would open and they would be right there, but the elevator was alreadydown to the parking level. It was on itsway back up, but Jon bounded down three flights of stairs while I waited forthe elevator to see if they had stayed on and come back up. When the doors finally opened, they werenowhere in sight. By the time I couldpush the door closed button I could hear them starting to cry. I knew they must have pushed “P” for parkingsince that was the only button we ever pushed and I knew that once they got outinto the little vestibule down there, there was no way they could get out intothe actual parking garage… but it wasstill terrifying. I was screaming downto them that mommy and daddy were coming, and in between the first floor andthe parking level, I heard Jon get to them first. They were quite terrified andtraumatized, but perfectly fine. Luckilytheir path was predictable and once they were down there they were contained inthat small area, but it was still so scary. We gave them a firm but brief lecture about NEVER getting on an elevatoralone, but it was quite brief becausewe were all so scared and just thankful to all be together. When they finally calmed down, Caleb said, “Butmama, I didn’t push the red button! Thoseare only for firefighters!” I guess ourtwice daily discussions over the last month had finally sunk in J
The good news about it all was that we were too rushed toget too emotional about leaving. Once werecovered our little escapees, we lugged all 9 bags down to the bat cave, packedthem all in the car, and left for the airport. It was 6:00pm and without a nap, the boys fell asleep instantly. Which meant they would wake up crabby when wehad to drop the car off and also that they were very unlikely to fall asleep ata decent hour in the airport! But there wasn’t much we could do. So Jon and I had the entire ride to theairport to reflect on our trip and take in the city one last time. There were lots of tears. I don’t think either of us expected LosAngeles to feel like home in just one short month. But it did. And I don’t think we expected the boys to grow so much. Or for our family to grow and change somuch. But they did. And we did. So it was hard… really, veryhard. Small parts of us wished we couldstay. There was a small part in each ofus that wished the boys could really stay and work the LA market. To show the world just how amazing they reallyare. And there were big parts of us thatwished they could stay and keep skating the LA skateboarding scene. But we both knew that even if we stayed, wecouldn’t re-create our experience. Itwas truly a once in a lifetime opportunity and we had to walk away knowing wemade the most of it and that we’d ALL had the time of our lives.
Of course waking the boys up to return the car wasmiserable. Then at the airport they gota second wind and got a bit silly, which made getting through security a bitstressful. And waiting for 2 and a halfhours seem even longer than it was! Butwe finally got on the plane just before 11:00pm. The boys weren’t the slightest bit tired and ittook all we had in us to get them to sleep. I think they finally fell asleep at what would have been 12:30ishCalifornia time. They each slept fornearly three hours. I don’t know aboutCaleb because he was in front of me with Jon (who got about two hours of sleep),but I can tell you that Matthew certainly was comfortable… he had two seats all to himself! I had the tiniest sliver of my own seat. Certainly not enough for both of my buttcheeks. For awhile I tied to sit on justone butt cheek with my legs stretched out on the edge of Matthew’s seat, but itwasn’t long until my entire leg went completely numb. And by numb I don’t mean that pins andneedles feeling you get when your foot falls asleep. I mean totally numb as in I could feel my brain sending messages down tomy leg telling it to move, but I literally couldn’t feel that I had a leg atall! Needless to say I didn’t get anysleep at all. Four hours later, seven ifyou count the three hours we magically gained in the air, we landed in Detroit at6:30am. We were all so far pastexhausted it wasn’t even funny. But wewere all so happy to be home.
Caleb eating lemons for lunch at Johnnie's
This is what we had to carry through the airport- PLUS two toddlers in strollers!
The boys waiting to go home
Caleb on the plane
Reading our "Goodnight Los Angeles" book :)
Finally asleep... Goodnight Los Angeles
