A road trip, another concert and another birthday.

So I got a part-time job, and on Sunday Matt and I had to be at work at the same time (durr).  A spouse of one of the guys in the band, who has watched Bug before, came over to watch her until I could get home.  And she was a mess.  When I asked her later what was wrong, she said that she was upset that we were both gone; that she "liked it when Mommy or Daddy is home."  I tried to point out to her that when she was a little baby, she spent entire DAYS without Mommy or Daddy, because they both worked all the time, and she always had fun!  It obviously didn't make a difference.  And I was only gone for an hour and a half.

She's completely fine going to school, so I figure there's something about being home without us that's off-putting.  Can you tell we never go out?

Her behavior lately has permanently elevated my blood pressure.  I'm trying to get on the Good Mom bandwagon.  I'm checking out websites about not yelling, I'm trying to glean advice from Facebook, and from other friends, but it's just not working.  How do you not yell when:

• Your child, after receiving a treat for good behavior, immediately goes back to being a shit before said treat has even been digested.  Like going floppy in the middle of the goddamn parking lot and refusing to get into the car seat, yelling with a HUGE GRIN ON HER FACE the entire time.  OMFG.
• When I'm driving:
  "Mom, can I lick my shoe/put my flashlight in my mouth/break my glasses/do something I know I'm not supposed to do?"
  "No, you cannot."
  "Well I just diiiiid [in a sing-songy voice]."
  "You know you're not supposed to, so stop."
  "I just did it."
  This.  THIS.  ALL THE TIME.  It's so insulting!  STOP MEAN-GIRLING ME. 

I know I'm supposed to focus on the good behavior and not the bad, so I try and praise when she's being good.  It's just that the yelling when she's misbehaving tends to be louder.  

Someone somewhere had a suggestion on making a sticker chart, where kids start out with a set number of stickers each day, and then bad behavior can cause loss of stickers.  Like you start out with 10 stickers for good listening, and then you can threaten the kids that you're going to take away a sticker when they're not listening, etc.  And then there are rewards after a certain number of stickers.

This seems like a great idea, but A) I keep forgetting to buy posterboard and B) I can't figure out how many stickers to start with each day.  Because I feel like we'd have to start with 50 for good listening, and 75 for not yelling if we had any hope of her ending up with ONE sticker left over at the end of the day.

I have finally put it together that crappy behavior is amplified when she's tired, so I try and cut her a break when I know that's the reason, and try not to sneak in too many, "Well if you slept past sunrise," or, "Try going to sleep at bedtime instead of manufacturing reasons to go to the bathroom," suggestions.  

And SPEAKING OF TERRIBLE BEHAVIOR WHEN EXHAUSTED, I am soooo behind on the mini road trip we took up the PCH a week ago.  So here goes!

(Note: The Friday before Father's Day, we skipped nap, because I had a gajillion errands to run, including finding a camping lantern for reasons I will explain later.  I am glad we had the lantern, but in hindsight wish she would have slept.)

Saturday morning we headed out!  Our first stop was the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, but not before we stopped at the Dunkin Donuts at Pendleton.

I was very excited about going to the museum.  I thought Bug was going to find the exhibits interesting, AND we had plans to attend the Critter Club at 10:30.  To our surprise, our entire family was free, because Matt is active duty (originally we thought he would only be the only free one).  Bonus!

One of the first things you see when you walk in are these dinosaurs.  She could have cared less.

At least [dead] dinosaurs don't move?

While we waited for Critter Club to start, we checked out some of the dioramas on the first floor.  I have not been to a history museum in a very long time (ever?) so I may have had some unrealistic expectations.

She was convinced they were all pictures, instead of optical-illusion 3D models.  I couldn't help feeling like we were at the anti-zoo, since everything was dead.

Then it was time for Critter Club!  This was truly very fun.  We seemed to be the only non-regulars in attendance, as the teachers knew the names of almost all the other kids.

First the kids learned about what animals lived in the desert, and which ones were nocturnal and diurnal.  Those terms were a bit over her head, but she liked the craft where we glued the day animals to the sunshine side, and the nighttime animals to the moon side.

Crafting.

Then after the craft it was time for the critters to come out!  It started with a SCORPION.  I almost left the room.

There were strict instructions for the children to remain seated.

This is a terrible picture, but the lesson is that scorpions glow under black light!

The next critter was a tarantula!  This one got to leave its cage.  I am in awe of this woman, and could never have her job, ever.  

Completely fascinated.

The kids were allowed to touch the tarantula, on its FANGS, no less.  She was quite excited.

Matt's hand, not mine.

Then it was a turtle!  The kids could touch the shell, but of course someone didn't want to follow instructions.

Matt reaching to try and grab her hand away as she poked at its foot.

When it was over, we had plans to continue exploring the rest of the museum.  The problem was that Bug was cashed from Critter Club.  Focusing (literally in the vision sense) on new things like that is terribly exhausting for her.  It makes me really anxious for what school is going to be like for her in a few years.  It takes so much effort for her to visually process everything, and she just gets wiped out.

We made it to one more exhibit hall, and had to skip the brand new whatever thing on the lower level that I had read about in the newspaper because she wouldn't stop laying on the floor and yelling.

Something actually taller than her!

I am not convinced this is the best dinosaur face she can muster.

Before we left, we were coerced into taking some souvenir photos.  I had no idea how they would turn out, and didn't really care all that much.

And then I saw them, and I had to purchase them.  

They're taken in front of a green screen so they can superimpose backgrounds.  We were asked to "look scared," "act cold," and "smile."  Behold:

Spectacular, right???  AND they gave me a discount because Bug was wearing a green shirt and is missing a body in every picture.  

We drove to Santa Monica to have lunch.  I have no pictures from lunch.  She was a whiny mess.  We did manage to stuff down some frozen yogurt, though.

After lunch we drove to Malibu to tour the Getty Villa.  Our reservation was at 2:30 (admission is free, but you have to reserve a time, and pay for parking).  

All Bug wanted to do was run around like it was some gigantic playground.  If there wouldn't have been so many people there, I might have let her.  Buuuuut I figured it would be frowned upon, so she was forbidden, and not happy about it.  

The beginning of the end.

Oh, you know, this is just my kid, laying in the middle of the floor by whatever spectacular Roman artifact, refusing to walk or be held.

Smiling because we told her we were leaving.

This proves we were all there!

We were staying overnight at the naval base on Pt. Mugu, and she slept for close to an hour in the car on our way there.  The base is sort of deserted looking and full of all sorts of top-secret goings-on.  The beach motel was cute, and totally worth the $27* a night.  

We found out a few days before that there was going to be a scheduled power outage the night we were staying there from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., which is, of course, the time of day when it's dark out and you're usually awake.  This is why we had to find some camping lanterns, and also how we got our room rate cut in half to the awesome price of $27.

We drove to Ventura for dinner, where we ate at this local pizza chain I found online.  It was so-so.  They messed up my order, so I got a free pizza, but we had to sit there FOREVER while they made the new one.

Reading before we knew they screwed my pizza up.

After dinner we wanted to go watch the sunset on the pier.  I found a playground near the pier that I figured she would like.  Which she did!  But too much.

When we told her we had to start walking toward the pier, she lost her mother-f*ing mind.  

The excessive amount of creepy transient men started yelling what I will pretend was advice (for such a nice-looking playground, the surrounding area was gross).

Matt carrying a completely inconsolable Bug off of the playground.

She perked up once we got to the pier.

We never ended up seeing the sunset because it was hidden behind the mountains, and it was freezing cold and there were creepy people.  

We made it back to the hotel, turned on our gigantic lantern/flashlight things, and got her in bed.  We brought tortilla chips and salsa and beer, and Matt and I sat outside (which is what I wish we could do at home) and had our second dinner of delicious.

While we sat outside, we realized why neither of our parents ever vacationed with us before we were seven or eight years old.  To no one's surprise, three-year-olds are generally ill-equipped to do anything but play on a playground or beach, and eat and sleep at their regularly-scheduled times.  We were trying to shove our red-headed round peg into this square hole of "let's see and do everything we can in 48 hours."  

But dammit if we weren't going to keep shoving.  We had another day!

Which happened to be Father's Day.  Happy Father's Day!

She totally spilled the beans on the Cookie Monster card the day we bought it.

These were the behemoth RVs in the "RV Park" that was adjacent to the motel.  They're only allowed to stay for 30 days, and must be gone for seven days before renting a space again.  The same goes for the hotel.  This thing is right on the beach, which I neglected to take a picture of.

I get so sick of all the blogs I read where the authors get free nights at these stupidly-fancy hotels in exchange for some nauseating "sponsored post."  Ladies and gentlemen, this post is NOT sponsored by the Mugu Lagoon Beach Motel, but we'd totally stay there again.

I found the easiest trail I could in my trail book that I thought might still be pretty to look at.  And Nojoqui Falls did not disappoint.

Yes, you can still "baby-wear" your 36lb, 40" toddler, given she agrees to stop bucking around like a psychiatric patient.

The trail was less than a mile, but I don't think we could have done any farther than that.  It was terrific thinking on our part to not waste a trip to Yosemite with her and expect to do any hiking whatsoever (she is too big to ride on someone comfortably, and too small to tolerate hiking herself).  

Not much water, but there was a trickle!  Due to the organisms in the rock/water, the cliff has actually grown outward.

Right after this was when I was ready to just leave her to fend for herself in the bushes, or be taken home by some overweight family who spoke only Spanish.  She REFUSED to listen, and almost threw herself off the side of the trail.  I about lost my mind.

We took a pretty drive on a windy country road to Solvang, which is a Dutch town north of Santa Barbara.  We had lunch and walked around.  There were gobs of people, but it was fun.

Tandem french fry eating.

In a clog, because it's Solvang.

Then FINALLY we drove back south to Santa Barbara.  It is quite pretty.  But I didn't love the "downtown" area.  It was really touristy, and there were so many goddamn people.  I think it was graduation weekend as well.  Blech.  

View from the pier.

My husband may just be the most awkward person I have ever known.  But this picture makes me laugh.  

Posing with her souvenir choice.

Four-thirty was our cut off time to start heading back to San Diego.  We piled back into the rental car and... sat.  The 101 was completely stopped.  We managed to get off the highway and took a detour through the mountains.  

And then someone had to poop.  

So we pulled over into some ridiculous neighborhood where you could see no houses, and only camera-guarded gates, and had her poop.

She was perfectly happy with the whole situation.  I thought a butler was going to appear and start yelling at us.

I had requested a stop at Point Mugu on the way home.  We ended up timing it pretty well with some gorgeous pre-sunset light.

She wants nothing but to be like me.

I spotted some guy with a huge telephoto lens and asked him to take our photo.

Luckily we didn't hit much traffic on the way home (Traffic, you may ask, on a Sunday night?  To which I reply: There are no guarantees when it comes to LA, and we couldn't use cruise control the entire time).

Bug talked THE ENTIRE TIME, until she finally passed out somewhere around 9:30.  

The car had to be returned by 10:30 that night.  We squealed into our garage at 10:05, and rabidly threw everything out of the car.  I took Bug upstairs, got her bathed and in bed, while Matt drove the rental car back, barely making it.  Win!

While we were in Santa Barbara, we found the most amazing shirt.  I would have paid far more than I did (and I paid a lot as it was) because it summed up the entire weekend perfectly: 

The next morning.

In summary: Culture be damned.  Three year olds are a pain.

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Then this past week, Matt had a concert up in Santee.  I HATE Santee.  It's so gross.  And the concert was so gross.  The women sitting next to us would NOT stop complaining about how much they disliked the music, and how "you couldn't dance to it."  It was a Show Band concert, so it was all big band.  That is the definition of dancing music.  I have been to a lot of gigs, and this was the ONLY one where NO ONE was dancing.  I wanted so badly to say something snotty to these women, but I did not, because I knew I would not get the response I wanted from them.  GAH!  It still makes me mad thinking about it.

Also, all the children that were there were terrible.  Fighting and wrestling and hitting and yelling at each other the whole time.  I HATE SANTEE.

But I got some cute pictures of the girls.  

At least SOMEONE was dancing.

They are totally staring at a group of boys.

Working hard for an unappreciative audience.

Ka-boom!

And then this weekend, Bug's friend E (the tiny thing you've been seeing in a lot of recent photos) finally turned three!

Was told not to go in yet; could not resist.

Learned about squirt guns for the first time this weekend.

But God-forbid her face gets wet in the bathtub!

They happen to be Mormon so that's a cream soda.  

There's a whole series of photos of the girls laughing, and they may be my favorites in a long, long time.

Why so serious??

Like pigs in mud with that cake.

Oh and just in case you're still reading, which I would be impressed with, I have been cleared to run (slowly) on the leg.  I've gone a few times since that appointment last week, and it's depressing.  I'm not starting completely from scratch, but I might as well be.  I don't know that I am even capable of running faster than I am now, and that sucks, a lot, because before the surgery I was at my fastest pace, ever.  I've done a few four-mile runs.  Today I ran with the BOB for the first time, so tomorrow we should be good at class to run together again.  I've lost a lot of motivation which, coming from me, is damn serious.

Oh, and we fly home to Minneapolis next week already!  TIME, SLOW DOWN PLEASE.