In a whirlwind I planned the whole thing:
We’d start off Spring Break with a short, local trip; One far enough to feel like we’d done something fun, but close enough to make it an easy trip by car.
San Francisco seemed like the best choice.
It is only an hour away, and there would be plenty to see, and do for us.
“What if instead of several days in a cheaper place, we splurge and have one night in a luxurious one?”
I had posed.
The girls eyes were big as we began to look online, and before long we’d landed on one glorious night at The Fairmont San Francisco as the place we wanted to choose; A hotel boasting not only accommodating every living president,
but also The Bachelor.
Three guesses which guest most drew in the girls.
We arrived feeling like Clampetts – So out of place in a place as fancy as it was.
My husband in black socks and sandals. My T-shirt had a coffee stain.
The bellboys giggled as we started unloading our car.
“Don’t worry about that. We do that for you.”
We explained, probably unnecessarily, we don’t usually travel 5 star.
At the check-in desk we learned there had been a glitch, and apparently because we’d booked through a third party site, the information on the room we had selected had been a mistake,
and there was no bed for my youngest daughter.
To make that up to us they comped us an entire adjoining room,
meaning now this hotel stay would include a thing of top luxury to us: Two bathrooms when we’re used to one.
The girls took a room right away, and we settled into ours.
The views of the entire city were unlike any I’ve ever seen, spanning all the way from the bridge to Coit Tower, which was lit up pink as if it was welcoming our all-girl family for our stay.
On the first day we explored the Pier and Chinatown. I had mapped out every place to visit and everything to do.
The entire trip had been planned around the girls. I wanted it to be fun for them. I love to show them the world.
Souvenirs and ice cream and the Chinese bakery.
I truly love being able to give these things to them.
I love pointing out a thing I know will light their eyes up –
A Bruce Lee mural for my karate kid.
We went to dinner and got back to the hotel late.
Everyone was a little grumbly and tired.
One wanted the drapes shut.
One wanted more space.
One asked me to please come rub her foot.
After the same old bed time routines that we have at home, and working to appease them back and forth, as my husband lay (shocker) face-down on the bed,
I finally got them to all go to sleep,
and I pulled a stately chair right up to the window and opened it.
The city and me finally alone.
I sat in the dark overlooking the lights far down below.
I wondered about the lives of the people in each house represented by a glowing window.
Finally. They family was asleep.
Finally a little bit of life that felt like my own.
I shook my head feeling like mistakes had been made by giving the girls their own room.
What I should have done was take that comped room all for myself.
Just me, that view, featherbed, and full control of the remote.
My husband had just returned from a 5 day solo trip, after all, to go to Spring Training with a friend, and while he’d been gone I’d been doing what I do. Planning the show and running it.
I could have chosen to prioritize me on this trip!
They would have fared fine all in an adjoining room on their own!
I had not wanted the curtains closed. I wanted the lights of the city, and the sound of it.
If I had chosen the dinner restaurant based on just what I wanted alone it would have been a whole different place to eat.
Maybe some little noodle bar that the locals know in a place you can’t see from the road.
I hadn’t gotten one souvenir.
They’d all gotten multiple, though.
Before I knew it, I was sitting there on what even looked like a throne feeling like
I would demand that my subjects see all I’d done.
Tendrils of irritation for the life I live curling slowly in my heart.
Eight stories up at the top of the hill:
The Queen of What About Me.
The next day I was woken far before I was ready at 7am, even though I’d given specific instructions for them to let me rest.
They were all starving, and could we PLEASE go get food?!
I don’t know how my body even bred morning people like them.
So, I dragged myself up, though I could hardly move my legs after all of the walking we’d done, and I took them to breakfast, leading through unfocused eyes.
“This trip didn’t get to be about me, remember?” I thought as I sipped my coffee.
Just me rubbing feet, and being awoken before the sun.
Kerri Green: a Living Sacrifice.
We shopped and we ate through the city Hungry Caterpillar style,
until in the end we made one more last stop in a mall.
The girls asked to go look at adorable things in the fancy baby store, and so we walked in pointing out all the cute hats and clothes.
The clerk called out from the counter asking us who we were shopping for,
and though I said no one really in particular,
I told her that my oldest daughter is newly married, though, so maybe it would be a grandbaby one day, I hoped.
We were in the store for quite a long time, picking up mini sandals and displaying pastel Easter blazers, when I turned to see my husband standing alone in a corner section gently touching a little lacy swimsuit.
“I hope they have girls,” I heard him softly say, and I went closer to hear him better.
“What’s that, Babe?”
“I said I hope Alena and Aaron have girls one day,” he barely choked.
It surprised me to see his eyes were rimmed with tears and avoided my own;
And in that moment, standing there in that baby shop,
it was like I watched it all come back to me:
The years of work and sacrifice, all the long nights, watching them all change and grow;
And the way that they have positively filled my life up with joy that has been abundantly more than if I’d just been here on my own.
These girls ARE what my whole life is actually about.
Whether on vacation or quarantined at home.
The years have flown by in between now and the time they would have fit in those clothes.
It was like I heard
“One day you WILL have what feels like a whole city all to yourself,
and you’ll wish to hear their voices on the phone just asking you one more time to close the curtains and rub their feet.
You have a city
but miss your small country road.”
“You want to feel it all again, don’t you?” I asked him as he still touched that suit.
Now he only nodded in response, overwhelmed by the memories brought out in a last-stop baby store.
I won’t always want to be alone with a remote.
I’ve gotten the best already, and it had nothing to do with views or noodle shops.
These are the souvenirs of life.
These loud crazy girls who want their window closed, need more space, and want me rubbing their feet are all that I really need to keep.
The realization of the blessing of this life that we’ve built is all I really needed to take back home with me.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
