My mommy has always said taking a cruise is a close to a real vacation as a mommy can get. And I think she’s right.
Because really, “vacation” when you’re a mommy just means doing the same crap in a new place with less naps, space and routine.
I honestly usually feel more stressed at the end of a trip, no matter where we go or what we do, than during our regular routine. I come home feeling like I need a real vacation after our vacation. (Except there’s the unpacking, laundry, cleaning and resuming of daily life to be done.)
For me, a lot of the stress comes from being on my own a good portion of our vacations. Because we sometimes travel with hubby for work (like the first time we went to Athens, Greece) or he has to return home before we do because of work, I am often left on my own with the kids in a new place and out of our routine which piles on the stress, exhaustion and frustration.
Take for example our latest adventure:
Hubby had a ski day scheduled for work while we were in Colorado for my sister’s wedding.
(I’d like to pause a moment and point out that the above portion of this post was written last week when we were in the mountains after I had spent a looooong day alone with the kids while hubby skied. It was the same day Pipsqueak projectile vomited all over me and my sling, the same day Doodle screamed as I drug him through the freezing snow, the day after I spent the entire night holding Pipsqueak on the couch because he was so miserable, and the same night I fed the kids cinnamon rolls for dinner and lined them up on the hide-a-bed in our hotel room before 6 because hubby was at a work dinner and I felt about as glorious as the below picture looks.)
We’re home now. And that day in the snow-covered mountains seems like a walk in a sunny meadow compared to what’s transpired since.
Since that first projectile vomiting incident, Pipsqueak has covered me in puke at least half a dozen more times and pooped out of his diaper just as many (I was using disposables more than we do at home when I know his cloth would have saved us many of those times!). And I spent the last three days of our trip doing twice a day laundry, trying to get all the messy things washed and dried before our flight.
I spent three more nights contorting my body around Pipsqueak’s so that he would sleep in hopes that I might as well though it resulted in little more than occasional dozing for me (I’m not a co-sleeper) and more over-tired mommy meltdowns than I’d like to admit (the last and worst over how the hell our crap multiplied so exponentially during our trip and how the heck I was going to get it all packed and back home.)
Pipsqueak’s “little” cold has wrecked havoc on our family. The puking (from coughing too hard), constant mucousy poos, irritability and inability to sleep has made us all tired and cranky. And while he is technically nursing well, it rarely comes without a good, strong bite with his two tiny teeth to start out as his nose is so stuffed up he can’t smell or breathe which has led to regular saline and brain sucking (our family term for bulb-suctioning).
We debated a visit to an urgent care to get him checked out the day before we flew home but the children’s hospital wasn’t on our insurance so we opted to start with a call to our pediatrician’s after hours line instead. I described his symptoms (cold with coughing, stuffy nose and lots of phlegm all leading to vomiting) and was informed our sweet, miserable boy was too young for anything more than the saline and suctioning we’d already been doing
Luckily the last morning (as I packed) he was generally well-spirited and didn’t have any more vomiting episodes. I managed to cram everything into our suitcases and squeeeeezed all the bags into our rental car before getting lunch with my sister who then dropped us at the airport.
I chastised hubby a little for not leaving more time for us to get through the ginormous Denver airport, but he assured me we’d be fine.
Of course, that was before they forgot to give us Doodle’s boarding pass and we had to return to the ticket counter. And before I got to wait in the huuuuuge security line because even with the TSA pre-check service I had paid for, I’m not guaranteed to get it (that’s part of the program, apparently). And before hubby failed the hand-swipe and had to go though additional screening in a private room while I waited with the kids.
We knew we wouldn’t be getting to our plane before boarding started after riding the train out to concourse C but our gate was only 5 down from the middle so we weren’t too worried until we realized there were also about a dozen restaurants within those 5 gates.
But we made it. We didn’t get to use the bathroom before boarding and I didn’t get to rearrange my stuff, either, but at least we got 6 seats together (I only had to bump down 17 rows with my infant, backpack, purse and two car seats). And I got the car seats installed easily and the girls only argued for a hot second about who was sitting where and we were all set. I snuggled Pipsqueak in my sling for a feed before we pushed back and he had to be safely buckled up in his car seat for take off.
He nursed happily, gazing up at me, humming as he gulped from my overly-full breast. And when satisfied, he came off and grinned at me with his big blue eyes while I closed up shop. And then he vomited all over me again.
Luckily I had had the foresight to pack some of his diaper inserts (we use simple cotton kitchen flour sacks towels) in the top of the diaper bag even though he was wearing disposables and which I was able to quickly grab to sop up most of the puke. I frantically stripped him down and got him changed and even buckled up before take off.
And as the flight went on, I sipped my much-deserved coffee, thankful that for everything we’d been through, my boys were both sleeping soundly snug in their car seats and my girls played happily on their Kindles. And as I listened to another child scream, I was happy in that moment that even in all my exhausted, puke-covered glory, it wasn’t my kid screaming!
