Vacation, Meant to Be Spent Alone?

 

Perhaps Belinda and the Go’s Go’s said it best? Not that I’m old enough to know that 80’s song or all of the lyrics or remember them water skiing in the video—ahem—but, I digress. However, the question posed is one I’m pondering today, is vacation meant to be spent alone?

I have just returned from a family vacation. For me, that included packing up and moving this five-person circus through an airport, an airplane, multiple Ubers and two hotel rooms. This was our summer “trip.” I make that distinction because we are usually fortunate enough to take one “vacation” and one “trip.” The difference, as I define it, is that the “vacation” usually involves a beach (easy for us based on geography), no scheduled activities, lots of lounging, an excessive amount of day drinking and the occasional nap.

This “vacation” agenda is fairly easy for our family. We are good at relaxing; perhaps it’s genetics? But, my kids will sit by the pool or beach and read a book or throw a ball at each other for hours and not get bored. Of course, there is the occasional request to go back to the room to play some form of video game, but we just laugh those off (see earlier reference to day drinking).

What we just returned from is the “trip” portion of our programming. Since the littlest was about 5 years-old, we’ve been trying to take a few days to do a city each summer. These trips have been great and our kids talk about them all the time and I feel like we’re affording them an amazing opportunity to see culture and other walks of life, but, it can be grueling.

Don’t get me wrong, the overall feeling is one of gratitude. Even today, I’m left with the overwhelming feeling that we all had a great time, we’ve made awesome memories and it was all completely worth it. But, there may have been a time or two during the “trip” that I found myself very angry at every member of my family and seriously questioning why we waste a single dollar or a hot minute doing any of this.

So, I’m trying to figure out what I could do better or differently to avoid those feelings of vacation rage and be my best most authentic self without using a litany of four letter words in my head. What’s the cause of this vacation rage? I’ve broken it down into a few areas.

Transition

Transitions are difficult no matter who you are, but I think for small people they can be even more daunting. In this scenario, we basically remove the small people from a summer schedule that involves a whole lot of nothing (I’m a big believer in summer downtime, but that’s another story for another day) and stick them in a city with no less than 456,354 things to see and do and we’ve got 4 days to do it. It’s like the amazing race but the participants are more like hostages than contestants.

This summer’s city was Chicago. An amazing city filled with the most gracious people and so much to see and do. Now, hear me out, we don’t aggressively program the city vacay. We don’t do organized tours and really only try to see 2-3 things per day that are actually interesting to our children. But, even that can be overload to little people, let’s be honest—the adults don’t do so well either.

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Unrealistic Expectations

And, now, a day removed I realize that what we asked of everyone was A LOT. We were all on the go from about 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with breaks for meals. We had a couple hours of downtown (read:ipad) before dinner –where the adults may have taken a nap, because we are on vacation and I am living my best life–and then we were out way past everyone’s bedtime. Oddly, people had extreme moments of crankiness, general snappiness and bad attitudes intermittently throughout the “trip”. I wonder why?

We were all tired. We were doing and seeing a lot and getting up the next day and doing it all over again. Did I mention, we were all tired? We may not have been the best versions of ourselves at every single second of the day. I can see now, with the gift of hindsight, that my children are not actually ingrates with no appreciation for the world around them. I am able to breathe a sigh of relief that I’m not really raising animals that have no desire to explore and learn and do cool things—they were just TIRED.

No Chill

The other problem with the “trip” for me is that I have no chill. Touring museums and going to restaurants and crossing city streets, for me, requires me to be in somewhat full parenting mode. I feel the need to remind everyone to: put their napkin on their lap, wait your turn, don’t put your feet on that, stop touching each other, lower your voice. This is a short annotated list, but you get my drift. I really want to be the cute overall wearing mom who lets her kids climb on top of the 67 million year-old fossil while snapping pictures and smiling at how flipping adorable they are, but I’m not. I’m the mom that says do not touch ANYTHING with a rope, be respectful of what you’re seeing and for the love of all that is sacred, STOP TOUCHING EACH OTHER!!

I really want to be overall mom. I do. I want to focus more on all of the joy and less on all of the things. I want to take in every moment and enjoy it, I want to see my kids for the awesome little people they’re becoming and not count the minutes until lunch and a glass of Sauvignon blanc. So, what am I doing wrong?

Am I completely lacking self-awareness if I say nothing? I am always working on my patience with my kiddos and trying to set a good example, but, I’m also trying to ensure that they grow into the best version of themselves. So, although I will try to work on managing my frustration, I probably will never stop telling them to speak kindly, be grateful, look people in the eye and look out for each other. And, for me, that’s ok. Because, for every instance of frustration I felt there were at least five to ten instances where I looked at one of them and thought—man, these kids are the coolest. They’re going to be ok, they’re going to go out into the world and be good thinking, feeling people.

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So, I probably will never be overall mom—but she should keep rocking her chill and her overalls, because I’m sure that works for her. I’m going to give myself permission to do it my way because it seems to be working for me. Except the touching each other thing!? Nothing is working there–how do I make them stop that??