Lessons from a Family Vacation

This year my husband dropped the concept of taking a long weekend/mini-vacation around my 8 year old's "spring break."  It was only 3 days off of school, but it was long enough that the 4 of us could get away and do something fun.  I immediately launched into weeks of research and selected Virginia Beach.  Because I don't want to drive all the way to NC for a long weekend and because I want ocean front and because we need an indoor pool in that climate in April and a town that has fun things to do and blah blah blah.  I took another 2 weeks choosing the hotel and 1 more week committing to it.  I was pumped!  I could not wait to go away with just me, the hub and the kids.  I packed 3 weeks before the trip and as I watched the weather unveil itself, I unpacked and repacked at least twice more.  In the end, we were ready for winter and summer - and surprisingly, we would need most of what I packed.  And, I think I gave the overbooked pet sitter about 5 days notice.  But we were ready to go.

And then we got there.  And I realized that we had never taken a vacation where it was just the four of us in 1 tiny little hotel room that looked bigger on line.  And I learned a lot about myself, my husband, and my surprisingly whiny loud ungrateful little barrels of sunshine whom I love more than anything on this earth. The top 10 highlights of what I learned...

# 10 - There is one road in Virginia that is death row for chickens. Within a few miles we passed both the Tyson plant and the Purdue plant.  We saw a truckload of unmoving white feathers enter Tyson on the way home, and the vegetarian life appeared quite appealing.

# 9 - When a man with a fishhook in his nose greets you at the front door of the haunted house that you just walked 10 blocks looking for, and explains that this haunted house is not recommended for children because it was intended to scare adults, your child will become indignant...for the next 1/2 hour minimum. The boy who told you to turn off Scooby Doo because it is too scary to watch before bed will regale you AT LENGTH about his overwhelmingly adult like bravery and inability to be scared EVER. This same child will beg you not to try to scare him when you are 5 blocks away at the kid friendly pirate ghost ride where you paid $27 for 4 people to ride 4 minutes through a building that has nothing even remotely scary or resemblant if a pirate ghost.  However, the "lady" who walked into the building before you in a skirt that covered approximately 1/2 her ass cheeks? She was frightening.

# 8 - Your parents still love you when you are in your 40s, but they are no longer all that interested in your plans and whereabouts. So, when you call them to tell them that you are safe after an internationally reported plane crash took place exactly 1.5 miles from you, one will say "Oh, your trip was this week?" and the other who knew you were going away will ask "When did you decide to go to Virginia Beach?"  That's okay, they have their own stuff going on and neither of them tells the other one what you told them.  Of course now that you told them you are safe, they will be worried about you.

# 7 - When a 4 year old is done walking, he will simply lay down on the sidewalk/street/boardwalk/sand/etc. If you determine that you cannot carry his 3 breakfast a day butt the next 15 blocks to the hotel, your best bet is to leave him there and pretend you don't care if he follows you.  By the time you are 1.5 blocks away, if he hasn't been kidnapped, he will get up and run after you making birdlike screeching sounds.  And when he catches up, looks you in the eye and squawks, he will walk another block and then sit down.

# 6 - This one is important, so listen up.  Always have a plan.  When it is 7:00pm and you are just starting to look for a restaurant for dinner, you will start making foolish choices.  For example, you will say "no" to a 20 minute wait at the Hilton's impeccable seaside restaurant.  And then you will think your husband is serious when he starts walking into a questionable looking restaurant sounding excited because it is a seafood smorgasbord (FYI I don't know how to spell that word and do not feel like looking it up).  Since he looks serious and you are starving, you willingly walk in and do not question the "limited" patronage.  You think to yourself that it looks dated but you keep going.  You are informed that the seafood buffet is $28.95  and that your 4 year old can eat free as long as an adult pays full price for a buffet and your 8 year old can have the buffet for 1/2 price.  You review the buffet with said 8 year old and he says YES, he wants it, because he wants tomatoes and cookies.  But nothing else.  No, not the fish or the meat.  "We're not paying $14.50 for you to eat tomatoes and cookies."  "OK, I'll get the 'steak.'"  I say 'steak' because after we FOOLISHLY all decided on the rubber buffet, I had some of the steak?  liver?  pancreas?  entrails?  Really no idea what it was.  I only know that it didn't taste like steak and now I am convinced that I've poisoned both my children with mystery meat.  Possibly worse, I poured "butter" over the 8 year old's corn on the cob.  After getting some cold clams and crabs legs which I dipped in the "butter", I realize that it doesn't taste like butter and it has a water-like consistency.  So either the waiters peed in a tray and called it butter, or they dump popcorn "butter" spray into a vat and put little cups next to it to trick you.  The cold shellfish and pee butter are still probably not the worst thing I've ingested.  I saw some sushi.  And I ate it.  We paid $100 for the worst meal I can remember in the history of my life.  I felt no guilt whatsoever stealing extra cookies (which sucked).  I also took a side of midnight stomach cramps and diarrhea to go.

# 5 - It is often worse to punish a 4 year old who is jumping from bed to bed screaming after being told to stop, then to just let him keep jumping.  Because if you thought your neighbors hated you before, imagine what they are thinking as they hear him screaming and sobbing in the time out by the bed.  They probably think worse of you when they overhear you telling that child that if they can't be quiet in time out, they will be spending the rest of the time out in the closet with the door shut.  For the record, he was quiet in the closet and I let him keep the door open.

# 4 - Sometimes it's tough to be the Easter Bunny.  We were away at Easter, so I had diligently packed an extra suitcase with gourmet chocolate bunnies and baskets and toys and gifts and age appropriate LEGO sets and a venus fly trap growing kit (because the 8 year old came home one day HAVING to have one) etc.  I had made sure that it would be a one for one equal exchange and that nobody would really be advantaged or disadvantaged.  I put the extra suitcase in the closet and I waited for sleep to claim them.  I was exhausted.  I kept falling asleep waiting for them to fall asleep.  At around 11pm the 8 year old gets out of bed, goes over to the chair and says "I can't sleep.  I miss Rocky.  And Annabelle."  Rocky, so you know, was a beta fish.  Rocky, rest his little blue soul, departed this earth when the 8 year old was maybe 4.  He barely noticed he was alive for 2 years, but still mourns his death to this day.  Annabelle was my Parents' dog.  He saw her probably 10 times in his life.  And it was sad when she passed away last year, but this was the 1st time that he has even mentioned her other than the days following her death.  The Easter Bunny stayed awake a while longer.  And finally, she put together and hid everything in the dark sleeping room.  The next morning everything was good.  Except the 8 year old wanted to open the 4 year old's toys and not his own.  Well, YOU KNOW, I know I WANTED the venus fly trap, but it isn't really a TOYYYYY.  And he really preferred his brother's LEGO set to his own.  And his BROTHER'S kite was the yellow one even though that was HIS favorite color.  So yes, he had clearly been cheated.

# 3 - Children can go all Janet Jackson on your ass.  What have you done for me lately??  The final day (1/2 day) of the trip I decided that we would squeeze every last fun thing possible into it before we had to leave for home.  Before noon my kids had gone breakfast barring, swimming, hot tubbing, kite flying, beach playing, mini golfing, and ice cream eating.  We left at 12:02pm.  Upon arrival at home 4-1/2 hours later, I was told that the 8 year olded needed another vacation day because "I didn't get to do ANYTHING fun today because I was in the car!!!!"

# 2 - After approximately the 6th time that your 4 year old tells you that he is going to leave your family, you will open the door for him and wish him good luck.  You will approach strangers in gift shops and ask them if they are interested in adoption.  You will consider your options of leaving him and his brother buried up to their necks in sand while you and your husband go have some alone time.  If you do, you will want to make sure to either take extra birth control pills or triple up on the condoms.  We, however, did not do that, but instead  took pictures of the kids and then unburied them from the sand which caused rashes on both of them which SHOCKINGLY neither of them complained about.

# 1 - People who don't know me, might actually think that I am abandoning my loving children when I throw my hands up in the air at the local Blimpie's and scream "FINE!  G'BYE!!!!" at them before leaving them in the restaurant.  The woman who stared at me with her mouth agape as I walked away from them had not closed her mouth yet as I peered (while still walking) into the restaurant to see if anyone was following me.  The poor woman who was considering her 911 options did not realize immediately that my husband was, in fact, still in there, and likely to gather them up and bring them with us.  She may not have taken that much comfort in it as she watched the three of them leave the restaurant with two bawling children, but she did not call Child Protective Services...as far as I know.  What she was unaware of is that this was day 3 of unending whining.  That we had gotten a late start out for lunch and that after walking most of the morning, they were not happy to be walking around aimlessly in search of a restaurant.  That not having a plan was making their (unbeknownst to me) PMS-ing Mother a little crazy.  That when we finally decided on a FRIGGIN' BLIMPIE's for lunch, I realized there was one thing on the menu that those children would eat, and when I asked if they wanted that, they said no.  That when I begged the 8 year old to look at the menu himself and tell me what he wanted, he pretended to be blind.  She would have taken comfort in the knowledge that they were not beaten upon arrival back at our hotel.  However, they were forced to nap without lunch.  I'm sure this is a tragedy to some, but considering the 4 year old ate 3 breakfasts at the buffet every morning, we knew he would live.  And they did.  And they had the BEST BEHAVED dinner of the whole week that night.  Both of them polite and grateful.

 So, you are thinking that I have just whined for as long as my children did.  And you are correct.  But I would do it again in a heartbeat.  As long as we get a suite.  And have a plan.  Maybe a babysitter.  Much more wine.  Ear plugs...