Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Our Day Out


Plans for our day out...
-Cousin Amanda and her THREE girls spending the day with me and my ONE boy.
-Tickets to the tour of the new Draper Temple 10:00 am.
-Lunch
-Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point.

Tanner wakes up...
I can tell its not going to be good. GRUMPY still tired and wont eat breakfast.

Start to get ready...
Realize I know nothing about a temple let alone a tour. What do I wear? Can I take a stroller? Where do I park?

Driving to meet Amanda and her THREE girls (angels)....
Tanner crying in the back seat. Major anxiety and late of course.

Park and the day begins...
Not sure why I'm at a church about 6 miles from the Temple, and sweating like a pig. I try and negotiate with Tanner to stop crying and hold my hand (Not listening as well as I would like but no long crying).
I see my cousin and her three girls and we hug and then sit down in the gym in the church. Her THREE girls sit nicely on a chair and Tanner is all over the place.

WE wait 20 min feels like a hour...
Move to the chapel where they show a movie and ask us to be quite for reverence. Tanner starts singing loud. I walk out of the movie.

Go to get on a bus....
No system to restrain Tanner this is horrible. Three girls sit quietly in their seats along with the other 3 kids on the bus. Tanner is not happy because the bus I have been talking about for the last 30 min is not a school bus, he starts to cry.

Arrive at the Temple....
Beautiful, amazing and we start walking including Tanner at a snails pace and trying to eat the snow on the ground in between the tarps they have laid down for people to walk on. Stairs stairs and more stairs, with each one Tanner is getting more and more tired. Everyone whispering Tanner is not.

Arrive at the room for baptisms..
Tanner yells "COWS" I pick him up and hurry to the the next room. Tanner kicking and screaming put me down. I feel like I could cry. At the end of each hall a nice elderly person smiles not saying a word and then points were we are supposed to go next.

Celestial Room...
Beautiful, amazing like nothing I have ever seen. I have Tanner by the wrist there is no way I'm letting go in this room. He flops to the ground and will not move.

Sealing Room...
I see chairs set up my face turns white. We enter and Tanner is at the peak of his melt down. I have no idea what is going on but many others follow us along with 4 other kids who take a seat quietly. An elderly couple enters and starts tell us about the sealing room. Tanner has LOST IT!!! I want to cry I have no idea what to do. Can I get up? Do I leave? Is that my earring that was just thrown under the velvet ropes by my screaming child? I leave.

I am met by a nice old couple who says in a quite voice "Oh he is really not happy" I pick up Tanners jacket that has fallen on the floor on the way out and a dozen kernels of corn from the cornbelly festival last fall come tumbling out of the pocket and fall all over the temple floor. I am in my dress which is probably to short for the occasion anyway crawling on the floor picking kernels up in one hand and holding my screaming child by the leg in the other.

The nice old man offers Tanner a piece of gum so he will stop screaming. Tanner takes it and throws it. I leave. I'm now crying I think.

The rest is a daze but somehow we both ended up back on the bus with a cookie in my purse and a water Tanner need to wet his dry throat from screaming so much.

The rest of the day truly doesn't matter. He fell asleep after lunch and didn't see one dinosaur.

As parents we all have these days, some are in the grocery store, some are at a park mine just happened at the LDS TEMPLE.

I do want to thank Amanda for taking me. I have great respect for the LDS faith and their Temple. It is truly amazing and I wish I could have seen it under better circumstances however I did learn a lot and found it very interesting.

3 comments:

Kristen said...

If you would like to try and go again, let me know. We have tickets for Monday - let's talk.

Trish said...

I tried to leave a comment once, this see if this works...

I am glad you got to go, despite Tanner having a bad day! When Emma saw the cows, she started yelling, "I want to rub them!" She also let everyone know before the movie (in complete silence) that she had tooted :)

mama blizzard said...

Jen you stress way too much! Everyone who has childen understands. By the way I'm posting pictures of the dino museum....finally. Do you know that you always look like a star! I about died when I looked at you and then at me (yes I have 3 girls and guess what....it shows AGAHHH!)