My husband and I recently took a vacation to celebrate my 40th birthday and our 10th wedding anniversary. Coincidentally, it was also our first vacation without our two 5 year olds. The plan was to take the red-eye to Detroit, drop the kids off with my mom and dad and leave for the south of France before the cranky, no-sleep thing kicks in. Be away for 10 glorious child-free days and come home a more rested and relaxed person.
When I first planned the trip I thought, “people do this all the time, shouldn’t be a problem” but as we got closer to the day of our leaving I started having the most daunting nightmares about something awful happening to the most precious two things I know. The “what if” scenarios plagued me like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I almost came to a full cold sweat-wake up when I dreamt that my two curious five year olds, while visiting the zoo with nana and papa, decided to wander off and were never seen again. How sick is that. Worse yet it was so vivid. I became one of those moms profiled on the Forensic Files. I’ll admit, I am a worrier. Worry is genetic and I definitely inherited it from my grandfather who we kids were always driving crazy in one way or another. But this kind of worry I decided was really irrational. But still, these nightmares continued. And I continued to plan for the trip.
I took care of everything—what they would eat, wear, play with, sleep with, take to school (yes, I even set them up with a great pre-school for them to attend a few hours a day to do “art”.) Right before we left my mom called and told me she and my dad were planning to take the twins to a giant, indoor water park relatively close to their house. And that they were going to stay in a hotel. Swimming related mishaps hadn’t even entered my sleep yet and the idea of them wandering off in a hotel was as recurring as the zoo thing. I told her I wasn’t sure about that idea and I could sense she was offended. I mean I totally trust my parents but that’s a lot for two olderish’ people to handle. Ultimately, I packed up their life jackets and we hit the road.
By day three of our trip our jet lag was over and we had an enormous amount of energy. It was about that same time that I stopped having the nightmares. In fact, I still missed my kids but wasn’t thinking about them 24/7. I felt more confident about the whole thing and we were having a great time not wanting our vacation to end! On the plane ride from Paris to Detroit we were both almost ‘giddy’ about seeing the kids again. We had talked to them several times from France but now we would get to see the 10-day change in them. And what a welcome. It was awesome! They’ve never been more excited to see us and to tell us all of what they’d been up to in the span of 5 minutes! As we flew back to Seattle that familiar stress of keeping two children occupied and quiet for 4.5 hours on an airplane began to creep back in. Re-entry is a total B-E-A-A-A-C-H…
The good news is that everyone survived. All the sweaty, sleepless nights were in vain. My children were of course wonderful to my parents and of course my parents couldn’t dote on them enough. The kids were responsible, got along, listened and only broke a few precious things of nanas. In the end I think we all did pretty well. Johnny and I did get a much needed break—from everything, including our kids. There, I’ve admitted it and I don’t even feel guilty. We did come back more rested and relaxed and that does count for something. We spent a lot of grown up time, staying out super late and sleeping in. We had denied ourselves this sort of break for so long that I never even began to realize what the added benefits would be. There was some real value here and as we came home I was already planning our next trip!
As we arrived at Seatac I was pretty excited to be home. That super, “ahhhh” feeling you get when you know you’re going to sleep in your own bed was something I’d been waiting for.
So with our two full luggage carts, 4 suitcases, 2 car seats, various other smaller bags and 2 children of course we headed for the elevator. When we all “almost” didn’t make it when the elevator doors shut, Blaise had a complete breakdown! What could that possibly be about. After the hysterics subsided, she told me that at the hotel attached to the water park, the two of them ran ahead and jumped in the elevator without my sister. Now, to make matters so much worse, one of them got off on one floor and the other stayed in and went back to where she came from. Can you imagine? I had had this nightmare and it didn’t have a happy ending—at least this one did. I felt so horrible and yet so pissed! I could see it could happen to anyone but that scenario has never happened to me.
Suddenly my planning of the next trip abated abruptly. How could I ever go away again? How could I have ever gone away in the first place? What was I thinking? It’s amazing how quickly I was ready to dismiss all those earlier benefits that I felt so strongly about.
In the end, my assessment is that we will go away again by ourselves and there will be mishaps I’m sure. And that you are only in control of parts of your universe but not the whole thing. That you aren’t the only person who can take good care of your children, although they’ll always think it’s the most fun with you. And that the mommy/daddy relationship isn’t the only one that matters–it’s important to nurture the husband/wife part of you too. It was a great learning experience for all of us—one that I never, ever would have thought would come in the form of a vacation…
Posted on October 9th, 2005 by Sam
Filed under: Uncategorized, Daily Life, Guilt and Getting Over It
Oh I wish I hadn’t read this. We’re in the middle of trying to plan a trip to France when I turn 40 this April. And we were going to have the Grandparents come here to watch the kids. Aaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii