Day Trip to Amsterdam = Epic Fail

Let me give you the play by play of our little day trip to Amsterdam.  First of all, we wanted to plan a quick trip to celebrate Ryan's birthday.  Friday night, our new friends here offered to watch our kids so we could go out on a much needed date night.  We went shopping and out to eat, and just enjoyed walking around Rotterdam.  Our kids were up and wired from having so much fun with their friends when we picked them up at about 10:30ish…pretty late for them.

The next morning we got up bright and early and headed out.  Here's our view from our great parking spot (hard to come by in Amsterdam), so the day got off to a pretty good start.

Happy kids waiting for our canal cruise to begin, posing for some touristy Holland shots...

 Handsome husby, on the canal.

 Here we are aboard the ship, waiting for take off.  Happy faces, so far so good...

Here's Kaydree taking in the sites…right about the time when the other 3 little people decided that hearing about architecture in Amsterdam was much too boring for them.  They started to get chatty, the Europeans on board started to give us some glares.

This was a cool view of 7 arched bridges in a row, taken right around the time the littles got a little whiney, seeing that they don't care at all about bridges.  The Europeans on board started shushing us, my favorite thing that people do to me when my kids are being noisy, as if I'm not already doing everything in my power to keep them quiet.  And as if the shushing doesn't contribute to the noise and make the problem worse.  And as if shushing EVER made a child make less noise.  Ever.

So I start the coaxing, the bribing, and the pleading with my kids to please please PLEASE be quiet so we don't disturb the other passengers.  And Ryan starts the asking firmly, then commanding forcefully, then threatening our kids to ZIP IT.  Neither tactic worked.  They were fed up with cruising and wiped out from staying out late and waking up early.  There weren't even any full on tantrums going on.  Just a lack of whispering and occasional whining and wanting to trade seats.  But of course, an unpleasant Dutch woman had to glare at me and request loudly, "PLEASE QUIET YOUR CHILDREN, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HEAR!"  Humiliated, I mutter, "I'm so sorry, we're trying."  I didn't even blame her really, I could see her point of view.  I just don't think I would actually say that to someone even if I was thinking it.  And in my defense, they sold us children's tickets.  I don't think they promised anyone an adult only silent ride or anything.

So here's Ryan thinking, "I'll show you 'IMPOSSIBLE TO HEAR' when I come over there and smack you upside your head."

 And here's me, feeling like a failure as a mother.  And here's Elsie, obviously unaffected by the comment.  In the background is Carver, who keeps begging for a bathroom break.

So we finally get through with the cruise, and we're determined not to let it ruin our day.  We'll grab some lunch, make sure everyone gets bathroom breaks and is happy, and we'll move on.  We got lunch for everyone, and Carver is begging to go the bathroom still.  By this point, I know he means business, so I send him with Ry to rush to the bathroom of the small restaurant we're eating at.  The next thing I know, Ryan's in the doorway mouthing, "Help!"  Suffice it to say, Carver had an explosion.  And with no extra clothes, no paper towels in the bathroom and hardly any toilet paper, and the wipes left back in the car, I called it quits.  We cut our losses and headed home.  It turned out to be the best decision of the day, because poor Carver was definitely sick for that entire day.  

So, farewell Amsterdam.  Next time we'll be sure to bring our children healthy and heavily armed with ipads, leapfrogs, iphones, headphones, and a good nights sleep so we have any chance of enjoying your sites again someday.