Home Finally.

At the end of day 3.

I always think there will be time to just unwind in the hotel room. Maybe draw with my oldest daughter. Or read. Yeah, right.
Days 2, 3 and 4 flew by in a blur. Day 2 was just the water park. Day 3 was the water park first, then the amusement park after. Day 4 we decided the previous day had caused a meltdown for Grace so we stayed at the pool at the hotel pool. We were supposed to go shopping before Chris and Joy went back to the park to try to win Joy a unicorn ,but that never happened. More on that later.

Grace loved the water park the first time we went. We took her to her favorite, the Hubba Hubba Highway; the lazy river ride at Water Country USA. This was the whole reason my husband planned this trip; because she had such a good time here last year. It turned out to be worth the trip. She just gets so happy when she is in the water, especially if her face gets splashed! Go figure. So naturally, we lost track of time. Then before we left, we took her to one of the kids pools that had a small tube ride. Well she went on that and was hooked!

The next day we went back to the water park with plans to go right to the amusement park after. Well, dad decided that since she did the little water slide she was ready for the big time so we went on the Big Daddy. Gracie would have been fine, had the sign that said" !5 minutes from this point" had been correct. Gracie's window for waiting is about 15 minutes: after that it is meltdown. So we had meltdown smack in the middle of the line. Once she got far enough to see what the ride looked like, she calmed a ltitle. And she did like the ride when we finally got on it. But before !!! Crying, Hitting. Screaming. And everyone looks. You try not to think about what they are thinking but ... It was the same way in China. All the families stayed at the White Swan Hotel and had breakfast, lunch and dinner with all the Chinese locals and business people and the children would cry, as children do, but each of the families felt the spotlight on them when they had to walk out with a screaming child. And naturally, you wondered what they were thinking.
You do what you can to calm them down and there is nothing else you can do.

Thankfully the whole day was not lost. Sometimes when Gracie goes out of her patience window, the rest of the activity is lost. It took her a while to come back out of her shell, but once we got to the ride she was familiar with, she was fine.

It is so important to bring things they are familiar with to comfort them. Both my husband and I forgot to bring things to occupy her, thinking it was a water ride and we wouldn't be able to take them down with us. So I didn't have her blanket, or her stickers, or my iphone with her games on it, or even a toy to get keep her busy. What were we thinking?  All these items are her talismans when she gets upset. They bring her back to calm and we had NOTHING. It's true when they say hindsight is 20/20.  Each time we go somewhere new, we learn a lesson.

By the end of the day, she put her life vest on by herself to show she wanted to go back in!

ALWAYS BRING SOMETHING FAMILIAR , NO MATTER HOW SMALL was the lesson today.