Here I am

I'm sitting on a front porch, comfy on a royal blue rocking bench, feet propped up on the white-washed railing. It is an absolutely perfect evening: a crescent moon hangs languidly in a clear, ever-deepening night-blue sky; the sunset was magnificent and though the fiery orb has said bon soir, an incredible residual rainbow remains. A gentle breeze whispers across my skin and ushers the trees' leaves to and fro, one child scooters in the street below, another sings a song from The Little Mermaid at the top of her voice and to thunderous applause. The channel over which I look is glassy smooth, and humidity dares not intrude upon this flawless eve. T is rocking next to me, reading the news. The boys are fast asleep, bone-tired after a busy beach day.

Despite itself, this family vacation has been just that in a number of ways. Cousins, waves, grandparents, sand, playgrounds and more relaxed rules regarding video game-playing have joined forces to avert a number of the issues my little crew is often beset by during stretches of unscheduled time. I've read a chapter or so of one book and started in on a new one. I took a nap today! We've played lots of games (Candy Land is not as cool as I remember!), done lots of puzzles, drawn silly pictures, made light sabers from colored straws and scotch tape. No dog begged for a walk, no cat nipped my nose before the dawn. In the harried way that even is relaxation when energetic young children are around, I still feel that I got away, stepped off the hamster wheel that is often life at home.

The sky is dark now, the sunset rainbow has faded to a dramatically shyer version of its former self, the breeze has slowed. Only the Cheshire moon remains as a constant. And isn't that just the way life is! Some things spin, others stop, some drag interminably, others race by entirely too quickly, some fade without notice. What's hard is remembering to grasp hold of the good stuff, while letting the lesser bits trickle through your hands like sand. Here's to bringing some of this home with us.

But just in case, camp starts Monday! Wink, wink.

On why family "vacation" is a misnomer

Friends, I can tell you with complete and utter truthfulness that family vacations with young children are not what the word vacation suggests. I think family work-trips is infinitely more accurate; possibly, on good days/during good hours, family workcation would not be a lie. The kids loved Chicago and ate up every experience. They devoured Cuban food for lunch, went wild for the bean (Cloud Gate), exhausted themselves in the Millennium Park waterplay area, schlepped up and down El stairs with us, loved the trains, met lots of people, thought the hotel was the cat's meow, cottoned to revolving doors. Yet, there was too much in the way of whining, self-absorption and all sort of misbehavior that comes along with shaken sleep schedules (they woke up at 4:20 every morning, and no I don't care that that's 5:20 eastern time because we were in the g-damn midwest), exact foods not being at beck and call like at home, and so forth. So while I'll never stop travelling with the kids, because I am a true and firm believer in exposing them to as much of the world as I can, it doesn't mean it's always much fun (for me and T).

Halfway to O'Hare this morning, our hotel called to let us know the kids' carry-on bag (yes that one, the one with all the toys, books and lovies) was standing at attention by the front desk. Fantastic. What an item to forget. Better than all our clothes, but still.

Could we turn around? Hell no- have you been on I90 during rush hour? Should they ship it to us? Ok. I don't even want to see the FedEx bill for this. Not at all.

Meanwhile, the boys were sounding to the nines. All kinds of nonsense noise, repeating inane commentary, too much kissing of Mommy (no, it bypassed sweet two days ago), baby talk. I thought my head was going to blow off. T took the three-seat row with the kids as I'd done the deed on the way out, so I napped and read to the best of my ability until Charlotte, at which point any reserve I'd accumulated was banished again. We made it fine to Wilmington, are now in Wrightsville Beach, have already boogie-boarded and shell-collected, and my brother-in-law poured me a glass of chilled white at 4:59p, bless his soul.

So peeps, all those pictures of smiling families, happily together on trips near and far...they are real, but they're only half of the story. They're the parts we want to remember, the parts we work for, the parts we sometimes have to fake. I say this not to whine, though I am inordinately grateful that at present I'm upstairs and they're downstairs, but to be honest about how hard this shit all is sometimes. A lot of times. We, all of us, have romantic ideals about what family is and will be. It's not always such and it's worth being candid about that I think.

Cheers to everyone forging through their own such "vacation."

Away we go

Pre-rooster wake-up, yummy breakfast at La Fournette, brunch with DD and D (because when you wake up when it's still dark outside, you can do multiple meals of the same sort), Arts Fair redux, Jack plays street chess with a nearing-elderly wizard, running/water/the "bean" in Millennium Park, a slight injury, el-ride home, quick turn-around, early dinner with T's cousin and her hubs, quick bath, exhausted kiddos, packing up, exhausted parents, to NC tomorrow. Scene.