Holiday 2013

Over the last couple of months my life has gone from looking like this:

...to looking like this:

Metaphorically. (Of course.)

ANYHOO. When a friend very kindly invited us to spend some time with her and her husband at their holiday house in Mylestom, we thought, “THIS IS EXACTLY THE BREAK WE NEED!” and packed up our bags post-haste. Off we set, buzzing with anticipation. I love road tripping with Alan – I love that we have time for long conversations and hand-holding and listening to podcasts together, all of which feel like luxuries at this stage of our parent-y lives. For Moses, I had dreams of us entertaining each other with singalongs and games of Spotto or an adapted-for-three-year-olds version of I Spy, though I packed the DVD player as a just-in-case option. We’d barely left our driveway when he asked, “Are we on holidays yet?” and then, a minute or so later, “How long is it until we’re there?” and THEN, only a minute after THAT, “Are we there yet?” 

He was watching Mary Poppins by the time we left our suburb. 

If I had to divide the trip into sections and name them, I’d call the first one ‘The Part with all the Realisations’. For example:

Realisation: I’m more like my father than I thought. On Wednesday Moses rode on a camel and then as soon as we were back in the car he started whinging about being hungry and I was all like, “YOU JUST RODE A CAMEL! WHY ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT SANDWICHES?!” until I sensed that this whole situation felt vaguely familiar and OH YEAH: I used to be Moses and my dad used to be me, the “Food shmood! Let’s do activitieeeeees!” one. I’d thought I was someone who believed that holidays were for chillaxing and books and no plans and lazing around, and it’s possible that I once was, but it turns out that holidaying with kids has woken up the crazy, let’s-do-lots-of-fun-holiday-things-and-accidentally-forget-about-lunch person inside of me.

Realisation: When you spend most of your time looking after your kids, holidays aren’t so much a break from ordinary life as ordinary life shifted to a scenic but far less convenient setting. I’m not sure what I was expecting. Actually, I am sure: I was expecting to be able to sleep long hours and read a book and swim every day and relax. My bad.

The second section of the trip would be called ‘The Part with all the Gastro’. 

Alan and Moses ran to the toilet every hour on Wednesday night, although because Alan ended up sleeping in Mo’s room and I was completely undisturbed by it all, I went ahead with our original Thursday plans and took us all to the Coffs Harbour Butterfly House (activityyyyyyyyyyy!) in the morning. Moses was cranky and showed no interest whatsoever in anything except the freezer full of ice creams, so I bribed him; the second time we went through the butterfly-filled enclosure I made him say things like “Yes, mother dear!” and “How very funny you are!” and “You’re looking especially beautiful today!” and then, when he’d had his happy face on for long enough, I took him out and bought him a lemonade icy pole, after which he went back to being cranky and refused to pose for a photo in the big butterfly outside.

“We don’t have to get a photo of the big butterfly,” Alan said, wearily.

“WE DO HAVE TO GET PHOTO IN THE BIG BUTTERFLY! THIS IS MY HOLIDAY TOO!” I calmly replied (I did a lot of all-caps talking throughout the trip, as you may have noticed). And so:

I’m not sure what I’ll do when Hazel’s also old enough to say “No way.”

Much of the remainder of our time in Mylestom involved Alan and Mo lying around groaning in between trips to the toilet, looking gaunt and slightly grey and crying, “I want to go hoooome“ (Alan) and “Can you please pray for my sick to go away?“ (Moses). Mo came home about half the size he was when we’d left; Hazel, on the other hand, had decided a holiday was as good a time as any to bulk up and fed every two hours between 2am and 9:30pm to accomplish her goal - she came back looking like a mini Buddha. I didn’t change in size, although I did start to get excited about the improved health of my brain after Alan and I had a debate on the drive back during which I was encouragingly lucid. And then we arrived home to find that I hadn’t closed the front door behind me when we left, and so our house had been wide open, day and night, for almost a week. Again: my bad. It hadn’t been ransacked, though; that’s just the state we left it in when we rushed out the door.

And then Moses pooed his pants.

THE END.