Life in a Police Officers Family

Temper Tantrums On The Road Part 2

Johnathan’s POV

I didn’t think before I jumped into the water. It is a nice day and I just thought cooling off in this nice waterfall area would be cool. Dad isn’t happy and yelled at me. He smacked my wet shorts when I started to justify why I did what I did and now I have a sore bottom and I don’t want to sit in the truck for another few hours.

We get back to the truck and dad opens the bed of the truck and pulls out my suitcase and hands me a new pair of boxers, shorts, and a new shirt. I go behind a couple trees and change and when I hand my clothes back to dad when I get back, dad puts them in a separate bag and closes the truck bed. We all get back into the truck and I go to grab my book, that dad said I could have after the Mountain, but he grabs it out of my hands.

“Nope, you can find something else to do,” he says to me and I fold my arms over my chest in a pout but don’t say anything. Katrina hands me an activity book and a pen and I start doing an activity while we are starting to drive.

I’m interrupted when Josh starts to poke me and laugh saying that he isn’t touching me.

“Josh, stop it!” I tell him, as I move further away as I can. I swear, I’m going to knock this kid out if he keeps touching me.

“But I’m not touching you,” he says as he leans over more to touch me.

“Joshua Matthew, stop touching your brother,” dad says in a warning tone.

“But I’m not touching him, daddy,” he says as he touches me once more.

I take his hand and I twist it, “STOP TOUCHING ME!” I yell at him.

“OWWWIEE!” Josh cries and dad starts to pull the truck over.

“Johnathan Michael, what did you just do?” dad growls at me.

“I told him to stop touching me, he wouldn’t listen,” I tried to protest my innocence. However dad pulls the truck over to the side of the road and puts his hazard lights on. I’m anxious because I don’t want a spanking on the side of the road.

“I’m only going to say this once, are both of you listening?”

“Yes, sir,” Josh and I answer in almost a whisper.

“We are going to get dinner soon, until then I want both of you to keep your hands to yourselves and your mouths closed. I don’t want to hear a peep out of you until we stop, do I make myself clear?

I hate when he asks this question after he tells us that he doesn’t want to hear anything else from us and then asks us if we understand or if he makes himself clear. It kind of is a 50/50 chance whether he wants a ‘yes sir’ or a nod of the head. I choose to whisper a “yes sir,” and Josh nods his head. I guess dad accepted both of those because he turned back around and told me that I could read my reading book and he told Josh that he could do an eye spy activity in his eye spy activity book.

Grant’s POV

I’m starting to regret not just buying the plane tickets. Joshua has been having temper tantrums about sitting in his seat, Johnathan has been physical and jumped in the waterfall water, which was dangerous. I’m just waiting for my teenage daughter to do something or say something sassy, it’s only a matter of time.

I know that I said I wanted to take my time and stop at certain places on the way to my sisters but now I just want to get there. While eating dinner, I ask Katrina if she could drive for a couple of hours, while I tried to get some sleep so that I could drive through the night and get to Aunt Ashley’s and Uncle Russ’s by morning. She was excited that I had asked her and immediately replied with a yes.

After we were done eating, I put a Disney movie on for the boys and got in the passenger seat as Katrina started driving. I was able to fall asleep and was surprised that I slept for about 2 ½ hours before Katrina was waking me up, asking me to help her with directions because she wasn’t sure what the GPS was trying to tell her to do. I told her to just get off at the next exit and I would take it from there. I think she was relieved because driving in big cities can be stressful. I had forgotten that she hadn’t had much practice with that yet. She had some, just not a lot.

We switched off once I had gotten a coffee, snacks, and gas. I called Ashley and told her we were making good time and that we would probably be there at around 3 or 4am. I know my sister and I know she won’t be able to sleep until we get there because she is too excited for us to be coming.

Katrina’s POV

I’m excited that dad asked me to drive. I didn’t think that he would allow me to do any driving during this trip, but I’m surprised when he asked me to drive so that he could get a couple of hours rest so that we could get to Aunt Ashley’s and Uncle Russ’s sooner. I was doing really well with the GPS directions until it started telling me things like be in the second lane to merge onto another interstate but then tells me to stay in the right hand lane to merge on to the ramp. I’m confused and wake dad up to help me. He just tells me that I did a really good job getting us to where we were and that I can just get off the next exit and find a gas station. I did and then we switched seats and we were on our way.

I’m thankful that while I was driving the boys were quiet and didn’t distract me. Dad was able to sleep and that meant getting to Aunt Ashley’s and Uncle Russ’s house sooner. I was excited to see my cousin Becca, who is the same age as me. We have always been close and we were both really upset when my aunt and uncle made the decision to move to Wyoming, which meant we wouldn’t be living close to each other anymore. My Aunt Ashley and Uncle Russ have 3 kids. Rebecca (Becca) is 16, my age. Joseph (Joey) who is Johnathan’s age 10, and Samantha (Sam) who is Joshua’s age, 4 almost 5.

Dad and Uncle Russ are best friends and when Uncle Russ started dating my Aunt Ashley, my dad threatened Uncle Russ that if he hurt her, he would hurt him. They have been married for 18 years now.

It’s 3am when we pull into the driveway of my aunt and uncles house and I go to grab the bags but dad stops me, telling me to just leave things in the truck for now, they will get it later.

I went in the house and was greeted by my Aunt Ashley, who was awake. She gave me a hug and then told me to go into Becca’s room. They made a bed for me in there.

When I went into the bedroom, Becca was just coming through the window…