Rainy day, lessons learned

It has been raining a lot in New England this year. Did I say a lot? Because what I really mean is more than I can handle, bear, deal with, tolerate....you get the idea.

We are so tired of being housebound becuase of the rain, so we decided to brave the elements and head off on an adventure. I was armed with 3 (three!!) sets of directions, all supposedly leading to the same place by the Seacoast. Our first exciting stop was at the Weathervane Restaurant, where I'd told them since we couldn't be enjoying the ocean right now, we'd at least be enjoying creatures from the ocean. Now that I've typed that, that sounds kind of sick. Oh well. Luch was good!! AND, Wednesdays are discount days for children, woo hoo, who doesn't love to save mula?

After many drinks and a few extra trips to the restrooms, we were off....for adventure....

I figured I'd keep going along Route 4, since we'd just been there at the restaurant, and since I had directions, I thought all was fine. Driving. Singing along to Sanctus Real, Hawk Nelson, and various other artists that the boys adore. Squealing with delight at the zebra car we passed. All was good. I had already made one wrong turn and had to detour by this point, but I figured I must have overlooked something. Little did I know that this was the foreshadowing of events to come.

We'd been driving for over an hour now, and should have been getting closer, not farther away, though the signs weren't reassuring me of this. It seems I would see the sign I needed from the off ramp or exit just AFTER I'd passed it on the highway. How useful is that, really? It isn't like I could just back up and take the exit after the fact, but the signs weren't actually posted along the highway. Argh.

No problem. Still trying to maintain a positive attitude, I tell the crew that all is well, we'll try this exit over here, wait, no we'll try that road over there. It was becoming a challenge to keep said attitude because by now I really was getting rather frustrated. We were on the correct road, I made the correct turn, and then suddenly we were not on the correct road. Or we counted the traffic lights, searched for this avenue, never to be found, until we were forced into a one-way situation, of course, heading the wrong way. I'm sure you've all had experiences like this one, and they can get downright maddening.

Isabelle Kate had just fallen asleep, and I didn't want to waste her whole 20 minute car-nap (she is a terrible car sleeper) still being lost; I wanted that for the long ride home, and boy, would it be ever so long.....

Suddenly I realized that I had four little sets of eyes watching my every move. How was I going to handle things? In a funk? Enraged? Pretend it meant nothing and deny my anger? I've done all of this and more in the past. But today was different. I really felt God was handing me a test, and I wanted to pass this one.

So I started play-screaming and yelling at the "stupid directions" while banging my fists on the steering wheel. At first they were silent. Then, within mere seconds, they chimed in (waking up Isa, yay) and we were all yelling like lunatics. While I'm normally not pleased about the word stupid being tossed around, it felt very appropriate at that moment. They had been stupid directions. We were sick of the stupid rain. And we wasted all our stupid gas and time trying to find a stupid place that we couldn't get to. We were loud. Onlookers probably wondered what in the world was going on inside our car as we yelled and flailed about.

But we salvaged our day, and our moods, with this little outburst, and we now had something to laugh about rather than stew about.

Feeling victorious, I detoured a bit- what did it matter now anyway?- and ended up at a large mall for a potty break and to stretch our legs. We wandered through a pitiful pet shop (sorry, but I wish they were all outlawed) where Isabelle kept asking to see the cows (funny!), to the bathrooms, down a corridor to a kiosk with colored frogs and painted shelled hermit crabs, who had enormous claws- yikes!! NO, we didn't come home with one of them! And finally onto the good ol' golden arches for ice cream sundaes. The best 6 bucks I've spent in quite some time.

All in all, our rainy day adventure wasn't what I'd planned, but it ended up being more than I'd hoped for.

And this morning? There. Is. SUN. Hallelujah!!