Redefining Vacation

I remember my vacations of not-so-long-ago, somewhere in between living at home with my parents and becoming a parent.  Plenty of spontaneity, no catering to anyone else but me (and my husband after we got married), 100% pure relaxation.  For me during this time, a vacation was a chance to experience something new, go somewhere really far away, and lose track of time.

Well, let me tell you something.  Vacations change once you become a parent.  I'd been told before that vacationing with kids was different, but I never really understood how until we had kids and took them on family vacations.

Vacations for us require a lot more planning now than just picking out a few outfits and coming up with a general plan for what to do when we get there.  For our most recent road trip, it felt as if we had packed the whole house.  Do we really need to bring the baby's bouncy seat AND bumbo seat?  Do the older kids really each need a bag full of toys if we're going someplace fun?  An entire duffel bag for diapers, wipes, and bibs?  Yet you pack and pack and pack, with the hope of heading off any possible reason for a meltdown or expensive trip to the store.

Not to mention the lack of spontaneity once you get to your destination.  Kids generally don't sleep in (well, mine did, but we had to keep them up very late every night), and there are naps, snacks, and diaper changes to mind.  You can't just decide to go to the pool and then go.  You decide to go to the pool, then wait until the kids wake up from their nap, give them a snack, apply sunscreen, wash sunscreen out of their eyes, reapply sunscreen since they cried it all off their face, find their shoes, find their floaties, find their sunglasses/goggles, and 3 hours after you decided to go to the pool you finally get to go.  Once you get there, you relax in the cool water for about 6 seconds before you are up chasing them around.

But you never truly experience a vacation unless you see it through the eyes of your child.  Young kids exhibit pure joy.  They forget everything routine that is awaiting them back home.  They soak in all the sights and sounds, and truly enjoy themselves.  They run at full speed until they pass out from sheer exhaustion.  Vacation becomes their reality, not some temporary event with an end in sight.  While we intermittently remind ourselves about work or school or all of the money we are spending, the kids do not have a care in the world.  It's pure bliss, something adults strive for when on vacation but can never seem to attain.

Maybe family vacations should be about acting less like adults and more like kids.