Pick Up Trip – Day 3
We really wore all the kids out yesterday so we decided
today would be a day to just relax and be a family. All of the kids, except for Mighty slept in until just after
8:00, which was a treat for us boys…Brandie wasn’t so thrilled!!
We packed all of the kids up and headed for First Junction
to buy some breakfast and then head to the ‘circle beach’. At the corner market I gave each of the
kids a couple Cedis and told them to go buy something they liked. It was funny to watch the exact
different directions my vanilia kids ran from my chocolate kids. BBT went for the fried dough (they call
them doughnuts here…but I assure you – they’re NOTHING I’d call a doughnut!),
apples and the tree ripened bananas.
MA ran for kankey, smoked fish that looked like they’ve been in the sun
WAY too long, and something with blackeyed peas and cassava. It was funny to watch both groups come
back together and pick through what the other had gotten. Talk about clash of the cultures! Great times.
We all piled into a taxi and headed for the Ramada Beach
Club. It was a beautiful day to be
at the pool…gentle breeze, not a soul in the pool, and of course the typical
nearly unbearable Ghanaian heat.
All of us changed and immediately took possession of the whole pool –
except for Tyson. On the way to
the pool he saw a lizard which kept him occupied for nearly 30 minutes chasing
it through the hedges, sneaking around a tree like a ninja, or belly crawling
through the grass trying to get the jump on the little sucker. In the end the score was – lizard 1,
Tyson 0. I’m sure he’ll get him
next time.
The pool was really fun. I liked it because no one else was there. It allowed us to continue to word as a
family. Agbesi and I worked on our
trust together. I put him on the
edge of the deeper pool and coaxed him into jumping to me. I consider myself a pretty good
salesman – but I exhausted every trial close and sales trick in the book to get
him to jump the first time. The
second time it was a little easier, the third easier yet, and by days end he
was nearly jumping on my head when I wasn’t looking! We made a great stride together today…although, I’m pretty
sure I’m second on the list of favorite Oswald boys. Agbesi has been attached to Brody’s back like a little
monkey the whole week. It’s been
fun to watch Brody pack him around anywhere and everywhere he goes.
At the Ramada all of the food is really expensive. The kids wanted to keep swimming but
were getting really hungry. Around
noon I ordered three dishes we could share just to take the hunger pangs
away. My thought was we would
finish up, head back to the hotel and change, and then go get another quick
bite to hold us over until the evening meal. That set Mighty off a little as she’s still trying to figure
this whole “Daddy is an endless money stream but he doesn’t buy me things I
want” thought of hers. We’ll get it figured out for her…just not the way she’ll
like it to be! This put her into a
little bit of an emotional tailspin for the rest of the day with me. She decided she was going to start her
testing phase again (the first time this trip) where she could see how far her
boundries with Dad are going to be.
I’ve learned as a parent it’s wise to pick the battles I want to win –
so most of the time if she’s sulking and not talking to me I’ll just leave her
alone for a while to blow off steam then at the right time I’ll move back in
and remind her that I love her.
Today, with her being tired for the long day yesterday and then being
tired from swimming today she was on her ‘session’ a lot longer than usual.
We returned to the hotel to pack for a couple of
nights. We decided because of the
distance to City of Refuge we would go out and get a couple of rooms at Doryumu
so we didn’t torture the kids with multiple two hour trips on days back to
back. The driver was to be at the
hotel at 4:00 so we could leave.
At 4:30 he still wasn’t there.
The kids were really getting hungry – but I didn’t want them to eat too
much as we’d been invited to eat with John and Stacey when we arrived. By 5:00 the driver still hadn’t
arrived. Richard called and was
told he was just around the corner.
By the time we loaded the van and were on the road it was nearly
5:30…right in the smack dab of rush hour.
The typical two hour trip to Doryumu took us nearly three and a
half!! The kids were exhausted and
starving! They’d eaten everything
in Brandie’s purse and were giving me crazy looks like maybe they’d start
chewing on my fingers or something!
We pulled into the hotel which was out of the town by a
ways. It was dark and late. The hotel does have a small menu
kitchen so we decided to ask if they had anything to eat. The gal said she had two tilapias and
banku she could put in the microwave for us. At this point the kids were hungry enough I’m sure they
would have eaten it raw. Brinley,
of course turned up her nose and didn’t want anything to do with the fish and
banku. Luckily for her John said
they had some leftover jollof rice at the house and he would go and get it for
her. When he came back he had a
great big bowl of rice and some egg sandwiches that Stacey had whipped up for
us. They are truly wonderful
people.
As we went back into the room, we decided it would be best
if we put M&A in the room with Brandie and me. Shandi and Brinley would sleep together and then Brody,
Tyson and Richard would share the other room. It was a good solution.
Mighty was really kicked into high gear with her ‘hate on
dad’ trip at this point. The fact
that she had to share dinner again – so shortly after sharing lunch – put her
on high alert. We had just gotten
showers done and put them into bed when Brandie noticed that she’d broken both
wrist bands that Brody had spent his money on getting for her. She loved them, but was showing us she
was mad. Typically, I wouldn’t
care – they were here things she liked and if she was going to spoil them, then
that’s her bad luck. However, she
saw that wasn’t getting my goat so she went down onto the floor where Agbesi
was having a little ‘moment’ and started talking Ewe in the tone where Brandie and
I have learned only means one thing – she’s stirring up trouble. I was typing the blog post and was
listening intently to the tone and watching out of the corner of my eye to see
if I could tell what was going on.
Agbesi suddenly slipped off his wristband Brody had bought for him and
started chewing it in half. I
looked at Mighty and saw her looking at me with a huge smile on her face and a
look in her eyes like “what are you going to do about THIS?”
I decided this was one of the battles I was going to
choose. I knew she was testing her
bounds and as I thought through the whole situation I felt it was important for
her to realize that although we’ll allow her to be angry we will not allow her
to be disrespectful to us or to other members of the family. I also felt like it was important to
let her know that if she wanted to be angry at us, that’s fine, but she will
not be allowed to use Agbesi and his respect for their culture (as her being
the older sibling) to be used against us.
I elevated my voice and in no uncertain terms told her exactly what I
was thinking about that and what I would not tolerate. That was the very first time either of
them had heard me raise my voice – I wasn’t yelling (I hardly ever do) but
there was no question to anyone in the room that I meant business. Clearly the look on both of their faces
let me knew the message got across.
Agbesi recovered from the chewing quickly. Within minutes he was back to his old
playful self. Mighty on the other
hand, it pushed her over the edge.
She immediately jumped into bed with Brandie and shut us both out. Brandie left her alone for a bit and
then tried to talk with her. She
would have none of it. She started
crying vocally (making sure I knew she was crying) and rolled her face to the
wall. I let her be for quite a
while. Finally, I crawled over to
her, kissed her on the cheek and told her I loved her. Before I could get all of the words out
she shoved my face off of her…she was in no mood for me! I decided it would be best to leave her
be and we could visit about it in the morning. I’m not a good parent – I don’t have any training in
psychology or the like…but one thing I know for sure is if someone pushes me
away…they typically aren’t in the mood to talk! We’ll let her sleep it off and we’ll deal with it in the
morning.
Until tomorrow….
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