The last time I looked at the clock last night was at 2am.  I usually don’t go to bed that late but I don’t get to bed early either. Usually between 11:30 and 12:30. I told my husband at 11:30 last night that the late night madness had to stop…tomorrow, I said.  We both laughed because I have been toying with this for months.  I do well for about a week and then I am right back to my late night habits.

I have sound arguments for my late night ways.  Firstly, I have done years of shift work as a server and restaurant manager.  Now I have the heightened productivity of the kids’ post bedtime hours.  I feel like a superhero after they go to sleep.  Regular tasks that drag on all day due to incessant interruptions can get done in 15 minutes.  Third, my husband usually works late either here at home or away.  I have a hard time falling asleep without him and I usually want to catch up before going to sleep.  And lastly, this is the only time in my day that no one is calling my name.  It is the only time I can finish a complete thought.  Well, that’s not true.  At the gym no one is calling my name but I can’t finish a thought because all I can think is “breathe” on a repeating loop?  Late night is my me time.

Okay, here is the part I am leaving out.  On the cons side of going to bed earlier, I have a serious crash every afternoon at about 2:30 pm.  Yes, I get my exercise, eat well and take my vitamins.  There is just no substitute for sleep.  Every person that I know that is really productive gets up early.  I am not sure exactly what the connection is but I know there is one.  Maybe I can have my me time early, right?  Umm, sounds good in theory but kids have mom radar and no matter how early I rise within 15 minutes I have immediate company.

I guess I have been getting too little sleep for so long that I find it hard to believe I can get up willfully without the sound of a crying baby.  My little Judah usually gets up between 5:30 and 6:15.   I usually wake up to take care of him and go on to take care of people until about 8:30pm.  To be in bed by 9pm feels like a race to wrap up the rest of my day in 30 minutes.  Even if I were to be in bed by then I will just lie there and think because I have not had the mental time to process my day and shut down.  My brain takes quite a while to “shut down”.

So, I will probably compromise and make my new bedtime 10pm.  Technically this does not give me enough sleep for my boot camp mornings that begin twice a week at 4:30am, but it’s a start.  I did it last night and had a little time to myself but wasn’t up until midnight.  I have been trying to teach myself the meaning of balance my whole life.  To those who don’t know these little compromises I make with myself are major triumphs.  My all or nothing perfectionist personality plus my genetic predisposition to be just a touch OCD (ha-just a touch) doesn’t help in this, but knowing is half the battle right?

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!

This morning was different from most mornings for me because I was up and headed out the door for a workout at 4:45am.    I do go to the gym most mornings but it is not usually before 8:30.  A friend of mine is teaching a boot camp at 5am twice a week.  It’s swim suit season so it wasn’t all that hard to twist my arm into participating.  My main concern, sleep deprivation.  I liken the level of sleep deprivation that mothers of young children live with to being a functional alcoholic.  The sleeplessness is unhealthy, even dangerous but functional nonetheless.  I am functionally sleep deprived.  So a 5am boot camp, not helping.

I got up on time (no snooze button) and was tracking to be early.  I grabbed my water and my phone and was headed out the side door.  That’s when I saw…IT!  As I was about to step out the door I looked down (I have no idea why) and there it was, a nasty little opossum!  I slammed the door and somehow did not scream and wake up the whole house.  If you have never come foot to face with a opossum you can’t possibly know how ugly these little buggers are.

I don’t do critters!  My heart rate is up and my adrenaline is pumping. I have broken out into a sweat.  I have the feeling that I can run the couple of miles to the park and make my best time ever!  It took a few deep breaths to calm me down.  I had been concerned about being sluggish and dragging through the workout but I was definitely wide awake.  Maybe this is the way to start the day with gusto.  Get the mess scared out of you and head right out the door!

When I got home I dramatically relived the incident for my husband.  He grew up in the country so this seems very trivial to him.  He could not understand why I was so hysterical.  “A opossum can’t hurt you Vanessa”, he said.  Can you believe he said that?  I can’t believe he was trying to use reason against my obvious sense of terror.  I told him I would NEVER use the side garage door again(sensible, I know).  He soon realized how very serious this was.  He told me he’d get online and find some sort of repellent.   I asked him to take the garbage to the curb.  I secretly thought this may be its new home.

I suspect that no matter how much sleep I get I will not be able to match today’s energy level for the next boot camp.

Grace and Ella have their dance recitals tomorrow.  There is always that child in all the preschool routines that just doesn’t dance.  Some even get so comfortable as to sit down while everyone else dances around them.  Some are petrified, guided stiffly out on stage and then have a doe-in-headlight look for the entire performance.  Others are simply not that interested in what’s going on.  The bow on their shoe has suddenly become wildly captivating.  Others just wave at grandma or grandpa the whole time.  Whatever they do it’s pretty cute because they are pretty cute.

My preschooler, Ella is finishing her second full year in dance.  She takes a tap, jazz, ballet combo.  She loves to dance.  At the practice recital in January she was the non-dancer.  She is not shy.  She doesn’t get stage fright and she was not distracted.  The morning of the recital she was fine until I pulled out her costume.  “I have to wear that!”, she shrieked.  She said this as though she was unaware until that very moment what this dance costume was for.  It had been hanging on her door all week.  “It’s itchy!”, she cried.  She burst into tears and hysterics.

I found something else for her to wear.  I explained that she would have to put on the costume before her performance.  Why did I think it would be better to have this meltdown in a public place?  At some point in her life she will need to realize there is so much uncomfortableness in the world of women’s fashion.  I guess I felt 4 was too young for this all too real reality.

I fought her clothes onto her in a public restroom and she pouted her way to her dance group.  When they came out I knew, there would be no dancing from that frowny face.  She stood there looking down with her finger in her mouth the whole time.  When she returned to her seat her grandmother asked her what was wrong.  She declared,”it’s itchy”, as though everyone knows this renders you immobile.

It would be nice if she dances tomorrow but not a big deal if she doesn’t.  We’ll just see what happens.  It is noteworthy that the costume is the same from January and with her last growth spurt I can barely close the back.  So now, tight AND itchy!  What are the odds she’ll dance?  What do you think?