The Promise

When you’re trying to persuade your kids that 11 days spent living out of suitcases and road tripping across the U.S. is going to be super fun, you will promise them just about anything. Jacob’s number one request was that we go to the City Museum in St. Louis while we were visiting Chris’s people in the Illinois suburbs. “No problem,” we had told him. I had even checked the website two months ago to confirm that this was a viable option. So we made plans to meet up with friends on Monday to spend the day with them at the City Museum, which is a ten story building filled with caves, slides, and tunnels all made out of recycled materials. It’s like the happiest place on earth to little boys. And we had promised to take them there.

But when I checked the website one last time on the Wednesday before departure, I discovered that the City Museum was closed on both Monday and Tuesday-- the two days we were scheduled to be in the St. Louis area. Whoops. My heart sank as I realized that I had made a promise that was going to be difficult to keep. How was I going to tell two little boys that there would be no City Museum? How was I going to look into their eyes and see the dawning of disappointment? I wasn’t. A promise is a promise, and we were going to keep it.

Now it’s 15 driving hours from Falls Church, Va. To O’Fallon, Ill. where Chris’s parents live. Taking the boys to the City Museum would mean covering that entire distance on Saturday, so that they could play to their hearts’ content on Sunday. Our leisurely “see-the-sites” pace would have to be accelerated into “full-on, break-neck, stopping only to pee, petal to the metal, race to insanity, are we having fun yet, was that a siren behind me” speed. No problem.

Except that I had planned our “Goodbye to dear friends and good riddance to old condiments” party for the eve of the road rage, I mean road adventure, which wouldn’t have been a problem if I had actually gotten all of our bags packed beforehand. But I didn’t. So I worked all through the night, fueled by too much caffeine and nagged by a promise, to fit all of our crap, I mean most-valued possessions, into suitcases and then into the car, while Chris tried to snag some Zs before the drive. We left Oakwood at 4:10 a.m., and I was asleep by 4:12.

Chris spent most of the day behind the wheel, but I did my share (about 20%) of the driving, too. We drove through wind and snow and mountains and boring Indiana for 20 hours, but we finally made it to Illinois, thankful for the time change that would give us an extra hour of sleep before our day of fun at the City Museum. And we may have been delirious from exhaustion, and we may have even forgotten our own names, but dag-nab-it, we had made it. We had kept our promise.

The rest I will leave to the photos, except for this. While Andrew and I stayed inside in the warm building, Chris, Jacob and Benjy and Chris's sister, Nikki, and her husband, Darryl, played on the outside equipment in the 24 degree cold. At one point during the day, I walked past the window and spotted this.

That's Chris in a metal tube of sorts, suspended at least eight stories in the air. I snapped this picture with my camera phone, so I apologize for the quality.

Nikki took the rest of this photo story from her vantage point. Chris is in the tubing beckoning to Benjy and Jacob to follow.

Benjy tentatively looks into the tube and then accidentally looks down.

Benjy says "I don't think so, Daddy. You're on your own."

Safe back in the plane, Benjy and Jacob laugh at Chris who is trying to back out of the tube. Jacob hadn't even considered following his daddy.

Everyone knows we love to slide.





And climb.



And play with balls.

Presenting Aunt Nikki and Uncle Darryl

And while we did all that, Ron (A.K.A. Pappy) had some fun of his own-- at the bar.



And because I may never see this ever, ever again, a picture of Nikki wearing baby Andrew, so I could play too. Secretly, I think she was feeling left out. It was a baby-wearing reunion after all-- see photo of my good friend Lauren, who drove all the way from southern Illinois to wear her baby with me.




All in all, I think sheer exhaustion only adds to the excitement of a day spent at play. It was totally worth it. Stay tuned for other great adventures as I find time to actually post them.