My child is a planner. It became obvious on our California trip. I plead the fifth on who she might have obtained that trait from.
When we arrived at the hotel in Redding for our first night stay, I dropped my bag and immediately headed for the shower. After thirty-two hours in a car, I could not wait to stand under hot water and bathe. Once I felt like a human being again, I came out of the bathroom.
I dug through our suitcase to find my comfy clothes and noticed that Kiera’s clothes were absent. I moved Aaron and my clothes around a little more until I was certain that her clothes were indeed missing. Now, I knew without a doubt that we had packed her clothes.
“Where are your clothes, Kiera?” I turned and asked.
Kiera was reclining on her bed that she had claimed as soon as we entered the hotel room. I noticed that she was snuggled under her blanket and was holding Quack-Quack. She glanced up from the television show that she was watching to answer me. “Oh! In here!”She scrambled off her bed and began to open the dresser drawers under the television. There were four drawers. The first drawer contained her socks and underwear, the second drawer held her pants, third drawer had shirts and the fourth drawer had her pajamas in it.
“I unpacked all my stuff,” she explained. “And look!” She pointed to the nightstand that was situated between our beds. “I unpacked my books too!”
I looked at Aaron who was lying on the other bed. He raised his eyebrows at me and shook his head in defeat.
“And…” She continued on while pulling me to the closet. “We have a closet with hangers! Daddy helped me hang my jackets.”
“Wow, honey…” I said before she interrupted me.
“Let’s unpack your clothes now!” She excitedly turned to the suitcase. “It’s not vacation if we don’t unpack our clothes!”
I finally managed to convince her that we did not need to unpack our suitcase for a two-night stay. I think Aaron might have cried if he had to repack our suitcase. She did organize our shoes for us though.
The next day after spending a little time with Grandpa and Grandma McNeely, the girls decided to do a little shopping while Aaron and Pop took our van to the shop to be checked out. Kiera and I climbed in the back seat of Grandma McNeely’s SUV while Grandma McNeely and Gigi took the front seats.
Kiera found a little notebook that belonged to Grandma McNeely and asked if she could write in it. Once she was given permission, she turned to me and said, “Let’s make a list.” I’m fairly certain my mother would have snickered if she had been present for that comment.
With her pencil poised to write, she asked, “Where are we going first?”
“We are going to the store first.” I responded. I spelled store for her as she wrote out the word.
“Where will we go after that?” she quizzed me.
The plan was that we would go shopping and meet back with the guys and head out to the Sundial Bridge. That was the plan at that time, so I said, “After we go to the store, we will go visit the bridge.”
I spelled the word bridge for her. As we pulled up to the store, she made a check mark next to the word ‘store.’ “I will mark this off our list!” she stated emphatically.
Once in the store, we made our way around to the different sections. We did get held up for a while when Kiera tried on shoes. After finally making an escape from the shoe section, we split off from Gigi and Grandma McNeely and headed to Kiera’s other favorite destination… toys.
As she was deciding what toy she wanted to buy with her money, Pop called and let me know that they were going to have to leave the van to get serviced and asked if we could come pick them up. I agreed, not that I would have disagreed.
Kiera and I found Gigi and Grandma McNeely and headed to check out with our finds. As we stood in line, Kiera asked what we were doing. I explained that the van had to stay at the shop for a bit and we were going to pick up Daddy and Pop. She didn’t say anything else on the subject until we reached the car.
After buckling herself in her seat, she reached for the notebook that she had written her list on. “Aww!” she groaned.
“What, baby?” I asked concerned.
“We were supposed to go to the bridge next!” she said as she picked up her pencil.
“Where are we going right now?” she asked with a hint of aggravation in her voice.
“We are going to the shop.” I started to spell the word for her as she let out a huge sign.
“It’s not in order. Now, I have to start my list all over!” she sighed again as she scribbled out the list and started to write the new list.
I turned my head to hide my smile before spelling the word shop for her. There’s never a dull moment with her. I can only imagine the lists we will have made when she figures out how to spell on her own.
Once we picked up Pop and Aaron and made our way out to the Sundial Bridge, she forgot about her aggravation over the change in her list.
It was an amazing trip for our family. The trip held a lot of firsts for Kiera. It was the first time she met her great-grandparents on Aaron’s side of the family, the first time for her to leave Texas and travel, the first time for her to be in the mountains, the first time for her to be at the beach and I am sure there are other firsts she experienced that are slipping my mind at the moment.
We enjoyed seeing everything through her eyes. As she and I walked through the trees on our “adventure” she stopped and felt moss on a rock. I took pictures of her as she talked about the feel of the moss. We carried pinecones and hunted for treasure among the trees.
As we stood on the sandy beach, watching the waves crash in, I watched the awe on her face as she took it all in. Kiera and Pop walked to the edge and ran as fast as they could to escape the waves as they came crashing on to the shore. The first time that they did not escape the wave and her feet got wet, she cried. Once we assured her that it was indeed ok, she laughed and ran back and forth to the ocean, taunting the waves to catch her as she ran to safety.
I loved seeing the joy on her face as Pop gave her a piece of sponge from the ocean. She immediately named it Spongebob and put it in her collection of sand and seashells that we brought home.
Even staying in a hotel was “fabulous” as she would say. She would complement the room, the décor or the staff in the different hotels that we stayed in. She raved about meeting her great-grandparents and how fun they were. It was definitely a trip full of amazing memories and we were blessed to be able to go and spend the time with family.
Kiera did so wonderful on such a big journey and like the rest of us had a hard time leaving but it was nice to be home. Towards the end of the trip, she put her hand on her head as if to check for fever and said, “I think I am home sick.”
