Heading Westward and a very Poignant Comment

We drove less then anticipated last night because of our delayed departure from Washington D.C. This did not matter at all and I remember back two years ago when we did the reverse trip as I brought my family to New Jersey I was very concerned with the time of our travel. Now I am more concerned with making the time of our travels count. This is a saying in Gamblers Anonymous, “Don’t count your day’s make your days count”. This is so true in this regard and so many other applications such as driving across country with your family. I was hoping to make it into Ohio but that would have required driving well past an intended dinner hour and having very grouchy passengers.

We arrived in Washington, Pennsylvania from Washington D.C. thus making a Washington to Washington trip today. Washington, Pennsylvania is a little different (big understatement) then Washington D.C. and finding a restaurant for dinner and a motel was a rather difficult task. My wife started calling the motels and almost reached a state of panic because the first three motels she called had no vacancies. We had to settle for the Red Roof Inn and I say settle because we try to get the motels that offer free breakfast along with having a swimming pool so the children can get out their energy they had been conserving in the car for the past five hours. This particular Red Roof Inn had neither the free breakfast nor the swimming pool but it was in the right location; where we were at that time!

The children were a bit disappointed that there wasn’t a pool but our children are incredible. They were stuffed like sardines in the mini-van and neither of them complained at all. There were very few brother/sister tussles and they were very content watching movies on the DVD player. I must say having the DVD player built into the mini-van works very well on these very long road trips. I know as a child there was no such thing as a DVD player and we were relegated to playing “punch bug”, reading “Mad-libs” and counting the out of state license’s plates. I am all for progress and having DVD player in the mini-van is a great by-product of progress.

I don’t know what type of psychological (if any?) my children and children of their generation will have due to all of the electronic stimuli that seem to exist today. I do believe it all comes back to moderation along with balance. Too much of anything has its detriments and not enough of certain things have its detriments as well. I know I am a compulsive gambler but I very much doubt this was caused by reading “Mad-libs” on our family vacations as we drove from New Jersey to Florida. Education certainly helps restore any balance and provides information on moderation and I hope to continue to educate my children on these thoughts.

We found a restaurant in Washington, Pennsylvania that was open and was in the fast food business. It was a franchise chain restaurant and I have yet to see a roadside restaurant that isn’t a franchise chain restaurant. With my very particular eating habits finding something to eat at these establishments can be a challenge; however; more and more I am finding “healthy” choices available. Tonight’s “healthy” choice was a crepe with low fat strawberry yogurt topped with fresh blueberries and strawberries. This was right up my alley and I have noticed that my children eat the opposite foods of me. How did this happen? I have never and will never impose my restrictive eating habits on my children or anyone for that matter. The only “rule” I had was that I didn’t want my children to drink soda and this worked with my daughter who doesn’t even like (her words not mine) soda but my son is the king of root beer. He would drink root beer all day long if he were allowed. We do try to limit the root beer drinking to the one’s with no caffeine because he doesn’t need any extra energy.

Of course I would like to see my children eat more or at this stage some fruits and vegetables but I understand this is a process. Their diets aren’t the best in the world and this week I have made it my purpose to get my daughter to eat at least one piece of fruit each day. I have been successful at breakfast giving her a banana which she seems to like; outside of the banana there isn’t much other fruit she will eat and I am not sure if my son will eat any fruit at all, oh well.

The evening’s dinner was good and we got back to the room where we crashed for the evening. The day’s drive would commence this morning and the goal was to get to Columbia, Missouri we were a hundred miles short of the goal but we needed substance and the children needed to get out of the mini-van. Once again the children were amazing and watched movies without any complaints.

I haven’t been able to check email in the past three days but I finally checked today. I received a comment on one of the posting’s that I wanted to include here; this is the comment in its entirety;

Paul,

You are wrong in your thoughts regarding our reluctance to talk to you. I am not the only one who feels that you have taken for granted what everyone in the family did for your wife and kids while you were away. For you to sit at the dinner table and never utter two simple words "Thank you" to us makes us upset and used. You may not see it, but it is true. I wish you and the family the best, but you have no idea what the last couple of years were like and what everyone went through and sacrificed for them. All you had to say was thank you, and you never did. It's just like when my daughter was in your house when the FBI raided it and you didn't think to apologize. Some things may change, but some stay the same. Sacrifice is not the monetary things, it's everything else. You weren't there when your mother-in-law who you say doesn't care for you agonized over putting her house up for collateral. You weren't there through all the tears. You came back, took all of it for granted, and left back to CA. That is good for you and for the family, but the way you take others for granted in what they have done to keep them sane and steady is not.

John

This is in regards to the posting I made about spending the day with my in-laws and the comment is correct. I did not make the effort to thank everyone while we ate dinner. I don’t have a reason or an excuse. I made it a point to say thank you to my mother-in-law as we departed last Saturday but it was more of a generic “thank you” then specifically thank her for all that she has done over the past three years and even further then that. I most certainly should have thanked everyone as we sat at the dinner table because that was the perfect opportunity. I remained silent which was wrong. I do apologize but that is empty and words mean nothing when the actions do not follow. I can’t go back to that evening and I take this comment very seriously. I believe I have changed but it is apparent I have a very long way to go. I am so appreciative of everything over these past few years and I need to stop hiding behind a keyboard and be able to say these things in person. I do thank everyone for everything.