"at the hotel"

When I started abruptly working full-time in February, the person that it affected the most was Kanyon. Because of the way that he is, Kanyon doesn't like change. He likes to do the same thing over and over and over, and he does really well with a repetitive routine. But after I started working, he was at a different place every day, being baby-sat by Dad or Uncle Malachi or our neighbor Camille, and some days he went to preschool followed by going to other friend's houses. It was all very confusing for him, because he never knew where he was going to be. Even though every morning, we told him the plans for the day, it was hard for him to handle the daily juggling. Every morning, he screamed and kicked and cried and threw fits about leaving the house. I dropped him off to preschool and at Camille's house so many mornings in that condition, and it was difficult for me to leave him like that. I often cried too, from having to deal his explosive outbursts in the morning and feeling guilty for leaving him to go to work. 

After 6 weeks of going through that every day, it was time for Josh and my planned couple's retreat to Utah. We took Kanyon with us, and dropped him off at my mom's house, while the other boys stayed at Josh's mom's house in Salmon. My mom willingly babysat him for 4 days, and he absolutely loved all the one-on-one attention that my mom and dad and sister Trina spoiled him with. He was so happy for those 4 days, and I'm so grateful to my parents for watching him, because I'd been worried about him and it really helped me enjoy my vacation better. After returning back to Salmon from our trip, there was only a day and half of work before the 10-day spring break began. It was also good for Kanyon to be home every day during that time, to be back to his old routine that he knew so well. He was so happy during spring break! 

I didn't want the last 8 weeks of school to be just like the first 6 weeks I'd had on the job, with Kanyon having tantrums every morning, so I came up with a rewards plan for him. For every day he didn't throw a screaming fit when I went to work and he went to preschool a/o babysitter's houses, he would get a sticker on the rewards chart. When the chart was full, we'd go as a family to a hotel. Since last fall, when he went to a hotel in Boise with Josh and I, he's been talking non-stop about going again. Hotels are his dream place: complete with swimming pools, elevators, and watching TV in bed! 

Kanyon was so excited about the rewards plan, and his behavior improved dramatically! After having lots of vacation time to calm down, and having the new rewards system with the hotel as the prize, he was an excellent boy! His preschool teachers and babysitters remarked about what a wonderful boy he was and how happy he was, especially in comparison to the previous month when he'd had several behavioral problems. He got lots of stickers consecutively on the chart so we could, as he would say, "go at the hotel". His sticker chart got filled up remarkably fast, and at the middle of April, we did our overnight trip to a hotel.

We went to Missoula Montana, which is 3 hours north of Salmon, and went to the Wingate Hotel with the Indoor Water Park. We'd never been there before, but we'd heard about it from friends who'd stayed there. The boys absolutely loved it. On Friday night, the boys played in the kiddie-pool area a lot, with the mushroom waterfall and the frog slide:

We stayed in the water park for two hours, and by the time we got out the boys all had, as we call it, "old man hands":

The next morning, after breakfast, we went swimming for another 2 hours. This time, all the boys except Kanyon went on the giant water slides over and over and over. Kanyon and I rotated between swimming in the pool and sitting in the hot tubs. It took Jonah and Micah lots of convincing to go down the big water slides, but they finally gave in and did it, and they absolutely loved it! It was fun watching them go from being scared to being excited about sliding!

Josh and Ammon made the biggest splashes of almost everyone I saw that morning, which was absolutely delightful for me! No matter how far back I was in the pool that was in front of the water slides, I always got splashed by Josh! One time, he shot out so far after coming out of the slide, that he even touched me with his foot! Those big splashes always put a smile on my face! I went down the slides a few times myself, and had him give me pointers on how to do it so I'd make a big splash at the end, but I never could get it right. I even got stuck in the tube once trying to go faster!

We all had a wonderful and relaxing time "going at the hotel", and as soon as we left, Kanyon already starting talking about when we could go again!