Gone Fishin'

Do you ever go out of your way to make some super awesome plans for your kids and then they ruin it all by being total a-holes? No? Well then, go read some feel good mommy blog instead. Yes? Tell you more so that we can commiserate over our parenting failures?

The funny thing about lugging a camera around with you at all times is that you have documentation of all of your events, not just the good ones. And when you slink home, exhausted and defeated, muttering to your spouse about how you will never EVER attempt to do something nice for your ungrateful monkey children again, you will probably forget that you took a bunch of pictures that day. The next morning you might remember to look at your pictures and you will see that the camera's perspective is quite different from your own. In other words, THE PICTURES LIE! 

Here's an example: We took the kids for an evening walk, followed by a trip to Sweet Life for dessert, and a dip in the hot tub at sunset. Sounds nice, doesn't it? 

Look at these photos! This could be a blog post about brotherly love!

About finding the simple joys in exploring nature as a family!

Or there might be some metaphor about the sun setting and us entering a new chapter of our lives or something like that.

But NO! What the pictures do not show you is that the kids spent a good part of our walk whining about being hot and wanting to be carried and refusing to wear shoes (??) and bickering with each other about sticks. And then we had to practically drag them kicking and screaming back to the car because NO YOU CANNOT THROW ANOTHER ROCK OFF THE BRIDGE BECAUSE YOU HAVE ALREADY THROWN FIVE THOUSAND ROCKS OFF THE BRIDGE AND WE ARE ALL TIRED AND HOT AND READY FOR DESSERT. Dammit.

One car ride across town where people complained about the radio station and the windows being up (they wanted them down) and then complained about them being down (they wanted them up) and Brent and I made many, many, MANY threats about going home and going STRAIGHT TO BED. And at one point I realized that they were totally on to us and our idle threats because we ALWAYS threaten to go home and go STRAIGHT TO BED and then we never do. This is because Brent and I are selfish and want to go to Sweet Life for a little gelato instead of putting whiny and overtired kids STRAIGHT TO BED. I am no fool. I know this is not how you are supposed to parent your kids, but sometimes you just gotta have that gelato.

Not pictured: Sawyer loudly demanding bites from everybody's gelato instead of eating his own. Jack stuffing a gigantic cookie sandwich into his mouth before Sawyer could start harassing him for a bite. Sawyer repeating bits of conversation at full volume from a couple sitting next to us who were clearly on an already awkward first date.

Also not pictured: Parents attempting to relax in the hot tub while monkey children splash water in our faces, kick us repeatedly, and fight over the floaty thermometer thingy.

So much for an evening of family fun. Clearly we are masochists, because Brent and I then hatched a plan to take the kids fishing the next day. Wait. Did I say I was no fool earlier? Scratch that.

Doesn't he look angelic on the boat?

Ha. So you know Brent is pretty into fly fishing and I try to be supportive (mostly) in this endeavor, especially on the rare occasions that this hobby actually yields an actual fish. The kids have not had much fishing experience because Brent (wisely) uses his fishing time as his alone time. Or at least his time away from me and the monkey children.

The novelty of the boat bought us some time on the river, but the kids had their greedy little hearts set on holding the long-coveted fishing pole. And Brent had his greedy little heart set on catching a fish. The fish were jumping all right. We could see them flip flopping all around us, mocking us as Brent spent OVER AN HOUR trying different flies and rowing and dropping anchor and claiming that we'd be catching our fish really soon guys! When Brent gets focused on something it is pretty hard to distract him. And so he remained blissfully unaware of the kids fighting over the snacks, Jack stuck on repeat saying how bored he was, Sawyer attempting to climb overboard, Jack threatening to jump overboard, and me (in a very desperate moment) thinking of throwing them both overboard. Just gotta find the right fly, guys, and we'll be catching those fish!

Not pictured: My nearly hysterical mini-breakdown in which I demanded to be let OFF THIS BOAT RIGHT NOW UNLESS YOU HAND THE FISHING POLE TO ONE OF THE MONKEY CHILDREN! And Brent was like "Whut?" and then I pulled myself together enough to suggest that maybe (JUST MAYBE!) the kids would like to take a turn fishing and NOBODY CARES if we get any fish at the point. IT'S ABOUT THE JOURNEY, NOT THE DESTINATION, BRENT.

And then look what happened:

We had fun. And then we got pizza on the way home, because we had no fish to eat. But that's okay. Pizza is cool, too.

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