After months of hoarding the boys’ birthday and Christmas money they’d received, cash and gifts cards given by family members, we accumulated a nice little stash to finance a trip to Disneyland. We went down the night before, stayed in a hotel, and the plan was to be there when the gate opened and stay until my little guys quit and collapsed in line, or on a ride, or maybe even against a churro cart.
However, the part that sticks in my mind the most was that night at the hotel. It started like all our other hotel trips, with the kids playing “flying monkeys” on the two 
queens, running and jumping across the two until the sheets are on the floor or one of them cries.
The drive to Orange County was bad, heavily riddled with traffic, and the kids were bursting out of their skins. That’s why I thought the flying monkey routine would tire them out, but it didn’t.
Then, we’re standing outside the hotel, entertaining the grandiose idea of walking to the restaurant to tire them out that way. But of course, we don’t exactly know where the restaurant is. My husband and I are standing there with our blasted phones in our faces, trying to get our respective GPSs to cooperate with us, while the boys have taken the opportunity of our inattentiveness to engage in some Roman-Greco wrestling on the back lawn of the hotel. It inevitably spilled over into a flowerbed, and then a bush, and then someone hit a tree.
One cried, one laughed.
I’m still waiting on my phone to tell me where the restaurant is, so I uttered one word. “Charles.” That meant I didn’t want to be the one to break the kids up.
“But I’ve almost got it up on my map,” he responded. That meant he didn’t want to break them up any more than I did.
“Ah-ha!” I shouted, holding my phone to him. “Mine came up first!” That meant Charles drew the short stick.
He pulled our older son up first while the little one was still going for the knees, and I started for the car. Charles called out after me, “I thought we were walking.”
“It’s actually a few miles away,” I said, speaking of the restaurant. “I’d rather drive and save our energy for tomorrow.”
He has each kid by their respective collars while I’m looking at a magnolia tree and pretending not to know any of them. He shouts out to me, “So now I have to put them in the car?”
I leaned up against the passenger side door and found another tree to admire. That meant yes.
By then, the little one had broken free and did a half roll into the parking lot. Charles was none too pleased. He told the older one to march to the car, and then tried to convince the younger one to quit rolling on the blacktop. So strange that it even needed to be rationalized … but I digress.
Suddenly, Charles and I collectively notice a middle-aged woman standing about 15 feet away, looking at us as if we were properly out of our minds. She apparently was there the whole time, taking her pooch out to do his business. But after witnessing our scene, she had on her judging eyes, holding the leash with the slightest of pressure because her darling was so well behaved and wouldn’t dream of running (or rolling) into the hotel parking lot. The dog wore burgundy booties and shook when it tinkled, too, so yeah, total darling. 
I took one look at her and then turned away. I guess I’m past the point in my life where I care what people think of me. My children have long driven me away from the thoughts of whether someone will like me or not, or of what they’ll say when I turn my back. This is because my kids have been pushing my limits so much lately, I’m just happy when I end the day without a twitch.
But Charles, well, Charles is at work for most of the day, most of the time. Thus, he isn’t as privy to the looks and glances and judgments as I am when the kids knock down mannequins or make linoleum snow angels in a grocery store aisle.
When Charles saw this woman and her judgment and her darling, perfect dog, he said what I’ve always wanted to say, what I’ve always been too tired or embarrassed to say; he gave her a look and said, “What? Dogs are easier.”
You tell her, Charles. And her little dog, too.
