Our Family Vacation

Our journey to a mountain hopefully covered in snow with a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old and 8-month-old, was not what we anticipated. Of course we should have known the shit storm of an adventure it would be. But, no!!! You doubt the obvious for brief moments of sanity and a smiley face (Social Media). Serenity: a fart in the howling wind with this ensemble of little people. We left the safety of routine and our little shit troopers beds; first parenting mistake…

The trip south was manageable for the first 2 hours. Looking back it was the calm before the storm. Half an hour before reaching our destination the car was bursting with screams, tantrums, and a baby crying for an escape of what must have seemed an eternity of driving. Upon arrival to our booked accommodation the kids sprang from the car like tigers escaping a traveling circus train car. They circled our surroundings like caged animals rather than well behaved children.

I wondered if we were raising kids or a pack of wolves? Howling at the moon seemed saner than eating a sandwich with our pack under 5… A predatory instinct came alive when I unlocked the door to our new premises for 3 days. The wolves or children (sorry) ran through the house, room to room, up the stairs, over couches, passing each other and banging into furniture while my wife and I tried to maintain some normalcy. Jumping on beds while smiling giant toothy grins of a new house to demolish and carpets to soil and stain.

I looked at my wife and we both shook our heads in fear of not making it out alive, and this was going to cost us not just with our wallets but our sanity. The spa tub looked inviting… thoughts of sitting silently with a glass of wine and our pack of untrained cagey, children fast asleep would swiftly be sidelined by our 3-year-olds never ending energy. Bedtime would be, well… not bedtime!!! The wolves would howl, full moon or not.

Upon the final slumber of our pack I would be the only one awake while my wife snored with baby suckling. The joy of falling into sleep in a strangers bed and a 3-year-old climbing on top of you. And the family vacation had just begun — with an interlude of night giving us a precious moment of catching our breath.

6 am: I’m stoking a dwindling fire while shackled by a frigid cold and my 3-year-old jumping up and down. 8 hours of sleep a small dent for her much needed 15. I wondered how she would cope… and wondered if my wife and I would still be married at the end of it all.

We made the mountain, saw the snow, played in the snow, and slid down the snow. The kids bundled in layers of cotton and polyester, gloves, boots and hats. We attempted a failed snowman, escaped a howling wind and navigated safely down the slippery mountain roads. The evening brought another battle with bedtimes, beer, wine and good food. A soak in the spa with my 5-year-old attempting water-bombs, not the silent attempt at bliss I had envisioned.

On the Sunday we had a slow morning of breakfast and clean-up, while shuffling our battle-weary-selves into loading up the car. The wolf pack loaded for the final leg: home. This one would rival anything we had seen or heard of. Our nerves were so jangled and frayed driving home, we both wondered how long PTSD would last. I kissed the ground thankful the family vacation was over.

The kids had fun, mission accomplished… We had brief moments of solace, but the brevity would not overcome the tantrums, demands and parenting snafus. In short: our pack, howling and running, won the battle. We were beaten, bruised and longing for our king sized bed. We wouldn’t make it passed 9 o’clock the first night, nor the second.

Our little wolf pack as we have now named them may never experience another family vacation. In fact they may never experience another road trip until they can do it themselves. But as they say time heals wounds. And: are they wounds or trauma? Probably both. Maybe the truth lies in the details. Our silent thoughts of daydreaming in a spa floating in the clouds is our biggest predator as parents. We dreamed of bliss with a pack of wolves. Our biggest mistake… Or was it? We forget we are human and in this conundrum we fail to allow our parenting to go as far as the children will push to be children.

Because we were once them as they will be us and so the circle of life goes round and round. So our family vacation pushed us to see the many illusions we carry around in our heads. And our little wolf pack teaching us we used to be them, playing, laughing, staining and destroying, because they have yet to understand what paying for something means. And we forget too.

This morning our 3-year-old awoke before us and cut a large chunk out of her mothers expensive UGG boots. The ones she wears in the cold winters, the only ones she has. Children teach us patience and they teach us to be present. Why a 3-year-old hacks up an expensive boot not even the greatest pychologist can answer. But it leaves us reflecting upon what really matters. Each other; and a reminder the folly of life and all its pitfalls are just cannon fodder. Children teach us over and over to love each other in the face of disaster with a gut check we are all human.