We have had a rough year and were VERY excited for a little reprieve for spring break. A getaway…change of scenery… breathe in some mountain air…escape the day-to-day schedule a little bit.
The funny thing is my husband and I get so excited about these trips and we EASILY forget what the reality is like when we take these trips with our family of little people.
Our daughters are almost 4 and almost 2… so as you might guess things can get a little nutty, really fast. Leading up to our spring break, I felt giddy…getting us all packed up and thinking of how much family fun we’d have together. I packed the car full of DVDs, snacks, drinks, books, babies, coloring books, crayons, music, my essential mommy bag, our kid potty…you name it I packed it.
We finally get in the car to leave and five minutes in our oldest says from the backseat, “So…are we in Colorado yet?” My husband and I looked at each other and communicated via ESP, “This is going to be a long week.” In the first day, I think I counted our oldest daughter asking if we were in Colorado yet about 25 times. Our youngest is still rear facing and could not watch the shows playing, so she yammered away about this and that the first 8 hours of the trip. The girls would hold hands one minute then be screaming at each other the next. #needearplugs
I have a switch where I can tolerate the girls and I have the patience for their silliness, but my husband, however, goes from 0-100 and I can see the level of “I cannot handle one more whining voice or I will lose my ever loving mind.” God bless him, he truly tries… when we pulled into our hotel the first night I heard the opening of an adult beverage as soon as the car was in park. He had hit is max for the day, and I don’t blame him one bit.
That evening, being in a different environment and sleeping randomly in the car, as you might guess our bedtime ritual did not go smoothly. Our rocky sleeper, would not fall asleep until 11:30 p.m. Our solid sleeper was so disoriented that she fell asleep unhappy and woke at 1:30 a.m. then my oldest was bright eyed and bushy tailed at the wee hours of 6:00 a.m. (Ayayayayaya)
The next day, thirty minutes from my cousin’s house, as sleet is coming down, and traffic is building up on the highway our oldest yells, “I have to go potty RIGHT NOW!” It was 32 degrees outside. We pull over, I jump out, grab my daughter and a wipe and attempt to hold her bottom out so she can “nature potty” as cars are flying past us and getting a lovely show. Of course, as my luck would have it my shoes and her pants ended up soaked. (Awesomeness.) Sleet is still falling, it is freezing, so I get her back in her car seat and cover her up with a blanket…and we move on our way.
We get to our cousin’s house and start to have a great start to our trip. There are kids to play with, adults for us to catch up with…it was good. However, each night our oldest ended up in our bed, which was already a smaller bed, not enough room for three people.
We tried to go out to eat (silly us) and catch up with friends and I swear I felt as if I was playing a basketball game keeping up with my toddler running all over the restaurant. She is laughing as if this game is the best in the world, and I am heaving as I can hardly keep up with her energy level.
One night our youngest was all out of sorts, she scream-cried from 11:30 p.m. to 2:30/3:30 a.m. (I lost track of the time…) I was so exhausted I could barely function. Finally at 4:45 a.m. when my little FINALLY fell asleep, my biggest wakes up and has to potty. We go potty together and lucky me it was mommy’s special time of the month and my oldest so sweetly pointed this out to me, as I am bleary-eyed and too drained to notice. I literally could not summon myself to the store, so toilet paper had to work and back to bed we went. Luckily my cousin saved the day that next morning. #realmomlifepeople #utterexhaustion
We are halfway into our trip and it has just been a huge reality check that we are still BURIED deep in this stage of life where anything and everything we do takes so much effort and pure exhaustion. We often question if it is worth it. If we should just lock ourselves up for the next two years until maybe, just maybe we can actually go out in public without it being an absolute show.
Anyone other mamas relate to this travel mode ridiculousness??
