On the Road

My children and I are on vacation. It’s the vacation I have longed for since last fall — almost a full month away from home, away from our routines, away from my war-torn house and all my obligations. We have almost a whole month to be Away, something we all desperately needed.

Of course, vacations with children are not really vacations, especially when only one parent is on the trip. I have done this road trip for three years now, so I knew not to romanticize it too much. Still, there have been some surprises. Notably, on our first stop in Savannah, we landed in a hotel suite that struggled with air conditioning — in July, in Georgia — and we had a particularly unpleasant evening in the heat.

Unfortunately, the heat turned out to be the least of my worries.

I wasn’t feeling well, and it seemed like maybe the baby wasn’t either. I planned just to let her sleep in the king-sized bed between me and my middle son. She has slept with me before, and she doesn’t love play yards, so this seemed like the easiest plan for a quick overnight. However, whether it was because her stomach hurt like mine, or the heat, or the strange place, or the strange bed… something did not sit right with the little miss. She cried and refused to sleep from 9 PM to 2 AM, which is extremely out of character for her. As in, she has never acted that way in all her fifteen months of existence.

I was incredibly frustrated. I had begun that day with an 8:30 AM phone call at home from the CVS Minute Clinic letting me know that, oh yes, in fact my oldest son does have strep throat according to the test they sent to the lab after his rapid test came up negative last weekend. After testing all three other children for strep and picking up the stricken child’s meds, we left two hours late for our road trip. I drove for about five hours before we reached our destination, and I managed not one, but two meals out with all four children. Taking four kids out to eat by yourself is not just like herding cats; it’s like herding Mexican jumping beans while hemorrhaging money.

Needless to say, unexplained crying and insomnia in a mobile 15 month old at midnight while staying in a hotel room with three other children and amidst countless strangers was unnerving, even to a veteran mom. I walked the baby around. I gave her a drink. I let her play with an unplugged hotel phone. I let her play with unopened tubes of diaper rash cream. I strapped her into her stroller and pushed her back and forth in the room. Finally, I let her play with my iPhone. Yes, at almost 15 months old, my baby already expertly navigates my iPhone and has her own apps. Her favorites are by Duck Duck Moose — specifically “The Wheels on the Bus” and “Old MacDonald” — complete with the songs, over and over and over again.

I felt desperate. I was exhausted, strung out, hot, and befuddled by how inconsolable she was. In many ways, being the only parent on a vacation is a magnifying glass on my relationship with my children. Everything is heightened, everything feels enhanced by the lack of trappings of our usual everyday existence. Without the chores and obligations of our home life, it’s just me and them, for better or for worse, in all our glory. I began to feel myself cracking; I had held it together all day while I was thrown last-minute strep diagnoses and pediatrician visits that included swabbing each child twice and five hours of driving and crazy, haphazard meals. But now, with only a sliver of light from the bathroom illuminating our bed, I stared at my angry baby and I prayed for inspiration. And sleep. I might have cried a little.

That is when my 9 year old stepped in. He was sleeping with us, and she woke him up, of course. “I’ll play with her, Mom, so you can sleep,” he offered. He patiently — so patiently for a child who is used to going to bed at 8:30 or 9 PM and who is not known for being calm in a crisis — talked to her, helped her with the apps, let her bang on his head with the hotel phone, and generally tried to keep her happy and quiet, if not asleep. While it didn’t exactly allow me to sleep, his help and his patience acted as tension release valves in the room. He wasn’t panicked. He wasn’t desperate. He wasn’t angry. He just interacted with her and did what he could. He was my partner. Despite the fact that I was strung out and exhausted, it felt a little sacred to be in that space of the wee hours of the morning with my child, working through a problem together.

Eventually, I was able to get her to sleep in the stroller and then to sleep in the bed. In the morning, she was better — my 9 year old and I were not. We were edgy and tired. But on the drive that day, I realized that it was one of the first times I can remember when one of my children really comforted me. So much of the time, I am having to play disciplinarian, gatekeeper, mediator, enforcer. Those are not fun roles, and they make me feel isolated and alone when solo parenting. But in those hours when we struggled to soothe our upset baby, my 9 year old and I were on the same team, and I realized I was not alone.

I’m thrilled to be on vacation and on an adventure this month for so many reasons, but the biggest might be that it is giving me a moment to see my children in a different way than I do when we are immersed in our routine and roles at home. Sometimes, having this magnifying glass on my parenting is uncomfortable. But in the dark of that hotel room, what I saw magnified is that my son is growing up, and he’s growing up to be someone I am so proud to call my son — and occasionally, my teammate in late-night baby wrangling. He’s a wonderful big brother, a fantastic kid, and he’s going to make someone a great husband and father someday.

I’m so glad I had the chance to glimpse that in him, even if it meant a few sweaty hours of sleep deprivation. It will get me through the next time I have to referee the kids while they fight like crazed animals in the minivan on this trip.