Family Vacation Homage

Today I honor all those brave and sacrificial parents who lovingly, willingly take their children on vacation with them.  Especially those with toddlers (independent enough to get away from you quickly but no command of vocabulary).  Double kuddos if you are a parent of twin toddlers or babies.  A special reverence for parents of pre-teen or teenagers and shock and awe if all three.  Where do I fit in, you guessed it, all three!

I have so many happy and funny memories from family vacations growing up.  My dad was a pilot in the Navy so we vacationed one summer and usually were relocated the next.  So virtually every summer growing up we had some big trip planned.  I always looked forward to the trip.  Both of my brothers and I love to travel and explore.  I guess growing up the way we did we really had no other choice.  We always looked forward to taking a trip.  Of course I say now that I have so many happy memories but if I think a little harder there was plenty of motion sickness(me), whining, arguing, complaining, he touched me, she’s looking at me and he’s laying on my shoulder(3 kids, one back seat) going on.  The worst events I can think of are the “funny memories”.  Me fainting at the Ponderosa. Our new Volvo station wagon filling up with mosquitoes while at a rest stop and the white leather roof being spattered with dead mosquitoes and our blood for the rest of the trip. The RV trip to Yosemite where I tortured no one with the silent treatment after being nicknamed Motor Mouth.  On that same trip my family discovered that I grind my teeth at night, not a fun sound to fall asleep to.  The door flying open mid-flight as my dad flew us to Tampa in a very small plane and my younger brother trying to close it.  I could go on and on.  Even now I chuckle as I remember these things.

What I never really understood was how much work and planning went into it as a parent.  Firstly, saving up enough money to go.  As a kid you don’t know that paying off bills is super duper exciting for your parents!  As we were setting aside money (Jeremy literally worked every day and night for the 2 weeks leading up to the trip) for our latest trip I was thinking about other things we could be doing with the money but those other things will always be there but your children will not always be children.  I want them to have  funny memories similar to the ones I have now.  Secondly, the packing for the trip.  Especially if you have really little ones and if you will be out of the country(Walmart run not an option).  Just thinking about packing for the Bahamas and doing the passport thing was exhausting.  Then I actually had to pack.  Real necessities like diapers and wipes and felt necessities like blankies and favorite toys.  Always with the nagging feeling that I am forgetting something.  And lastly, just getting there.  The drive, the flight the boat ride or all three.  Being en route with your kids is an all hands on deck job within itself because they have no concept of time and need to know at every 5 minute interval what to expect (Ella, my 4 yr. old).  All of this is applicable for one child and it multiplies for each additional child you take.  So really parents, hats off to you!

Now that you have arrived in your destination let the fun begin!  I learned on Mother’s Day that the average preschooler asks over 400 questions per day.  Well, I am the proud parent of an advanced preschooler and on vacation I think it doubles.  She needs to know everything you know about a place and situation and she needs to know now!  The twins who are 19 months old need to touch and put everything in their mouths now!  Unless it can be climbed on and if it can be they are climbing it now!  Pre-teenager is sulking, I can’t keep up with the reasons.  This is the go to mood for eleven year old girls but rest assured, you, dear parent are the cause.  Are we having fun yet!

Just to be clear we had a blast.  Kids and parents.  Highlights: watching all the kids play in the sand at the beach, the girls making up cheers and putting on shows with their cousin, eating a picnic lunch everyday on our back porch because we’re too wet and sandy to come in and we’ll just go right back out, going snorkeling with the hubs at Paradise Cove, holding my grandmother’s cane so she can “get low” and watching my mom and dad play with the boys on the beach.  And things that weren’t funny then but are funny now: waiting two hours for the rental car pick us up at the port, both boys having diarrhea on the 13 hour drive from Miami, Ella wetting her pants in the middle of the cruise ship dining room (never happens), and Grace after scowling for whole days declaring at the end of them how much fun she had.  And with a bit of irony our favorite place to eat was this Bahamian Greek restaurant named Zorba’s.

All this week me, the hubs and the boys will be recovering from our trip while the girls are with my In-laws at Disney World (fluke scheduling).  I know when they come home their first question will be, “When can we do it again?”.  That’s the very best part!