Our Life Together

Adventures With the Pitts

"Wake up!" The boys yell jumping on our bed.  They continue to jump until we finally sit up.  They're finally not pissed about being here.

"What do you want?"

"We wanna go!" Gabe says.

"Yeah, mommy!" Jack adds and I notice jelly all over his face "I already eated!!"

"How did you guys eat?" Brad asks.

"We got room service." Liam answers "We even fed Liv."

"Boys, what did you feed her?" Brad asks seriously "She's a baby.  She can't eat your food."

"Cheerios. We aren't stupid, dad." Gabe yanks the blankets off of us to get us up.

20 minutes later, we're all ready for the day.  Or so we thought.

Jackson runs off, Olivia screams, Gabe and Liam walk in two different directions and Brad and I end up lost.

"You should really come up with better ideas." I complain to Brad "If you would have said Disney or something this wouldn't be happening."

"Oh, so it's all my fault?" He asks "Well maybe if you would help watch them better instead of looking at the damn rocks they wouldn't get away."

"Mommy! Daddy!" Jackson yells letting us know where he is.  We both run over to find him pointing to a small cliff ahead of us.

"Liam and Gabe!"

Brad and I chose to ignore him because he's always yelling their names.  He picks him up and we walk around trying to find them.

"They're really starting to piss me off." I try to hide the fact that I'm worried my children are lost "They know not to do this."

"I'm not happy with them either.  The two little ones are so much better." He says "They're just showing them bad examples."

"They bad." Jack adds "And mean."

"Since when are they mean to you?" I ask thinking he made it up.

"All the time." He exaggerates "I scared and they mean last night."

"Well why didn't you come to us, buddy?" Brad asks "Next time you're scared or they're mean you need to do that."

"Okay, daddy." He lays his head on Brad's shoulder "Look!"

This time, we both turn to look where he's pointing, and see a park ranger.  A park Ranger with our children.

"I'm gonna kill them." I take Jack from Brad with my free hand.  He walks over to where they are.  I follow behind after putting Liv back in her stroller and making sure that Jack is right next to me.

"They did what?" Brad asks surprised "That's ridiculous."

"What happened?" I walk over "What did you two do?"

"Your children ignored the warning signs we have posted all over, and I found them hanging off the ledge over there." He points it out to Brad and I "Not only did they ignore them, but they were dangerously close to falling off the side."

"What were they doing while they were there?" I ask "We've been looking for them."

"This one," he points to Liam obviously not knowing his name "was holding the other one up as high as he could over the edge. You're very lucky they didn't slip."

"Really?!? The scene from the Lion King?  Why?" Brad looks over to the pissed off park ranger "We're really sorry about this.  They know not to disrespect artifacts like this."

"Dad, we were trying to have fun." Liam tries to get out of trouble "It's not like we did get hurt."

"That doesn't matter!" I yell "First you didn't read the sign, and then you did something that you knew was dangerous."

Brad grabs their hands and we start to walk away.  We were planning on going back to the hotel, but we're stopped by the same damn ranger.

"You're going to have to go to the park office to sort out this situation." He leads us in a different direction.

We follow him into the office. A few other rangers are standing around and watching us.  Of course, we look like idiots walking in because our children hate us and try to run off.

"Have a seat," he motions for Brad and I to sit at his desk "I really appreciate you going along with this."

"No problem." I try to say everything right and get this over with "We're really sorry for what they did. We should have been watching them better, but I promise they won't be doing anything like that again."

"Oh I know they won't be.  They won't be walking back up that way again." He says bluntly "They are banned from the Grand Canyon park starting immediately."

"You're kidding, right?" Brad asks surprised "They're kids!  They did something stupid, but we'll be watching them closer from now on, and it won't happen again."

"You say that now, but why were you not watching them closer in the first place?" He asks "It is not the parks responsibility to watch your children because you can't handle them."

"We looked away for a minute!" I get pissed off "They're 9 and 6.  They know that they're supposed to stay were we can see them.  It was an accident."

"And that 'accident' cost them their respect here.  None of that behavior is tolerated." He stops talking after he notices Brad and I aren't listening.  We're too busy talking to the kids and punishing them for what they did.

"We didn't wanna come to this place anyway." Liam argues "At least we can leave now."

I glare over at him and he knows to get quiet right away.  Gabe is too scared to even move.  Brad thanks the park ranger and we all walk out.  Liam and Gabe don't even say a word until we get back to the hotel.

"What the hell were you two thinking?!?" 

"I don't know."  Gabe says "We thought it would be fun."

"Yeah, and look where 'fun' got you."  I pace around the room "How could you guys do that?"

"We're sorry."  Liam adds "Next time we won't leave you guys."

"Just don't let anything like this happen again."  Brad calms down "You guys need to be good examples for your brother and sister."