Vacations are a lot of work

Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader, Thursday, June, 28, 2007 – Page 3

Why is it you can never just get up in the morning and leave on a vacation?

It seems like my wife started packing a week ahead of time for our sojourn down to Phoenix earlier this month. I swear we even started loading the van a day before.

So finally the designated hour of departure had nearly arrived when our two youngest daughters came into the house crying.

"What happened now?" I asked incredulously.

"Annamarie was hanging on the mirror in the van and and (hyperventilating) she broke it and and (sniffle, whine) and it fell down and hit me in the head," reported Ellen, the middle child, "and and it hurts."

Perhaps she was hoping for tender arms and comfort, or perhaps for justice to be dispensed upon her younger tormentor, but instead she faced only the Inquisition-

"What were you doing playing out in the van? (first question) How many times have I told you to stay out of the van? (second question in this particular barrage- but the umpteenth time that day) Can't you just play outside (without getting dirty) or inside- anywhere but in the van? (that's at least 2, but could count as 3 questions) What were you thinking?"

"But, but ANNA wanted to play house in the van," she protested.

"SO? (I'm not sure if that counts as a question or not) You're older, why didn't you stop her? Why didn't you come get me? You know we're trying to get ready for the trip, why can't you listen? Why can't you follow directions? (technically these are the same question so it should only count as one.) Why was it so important to play in there? (obviously this was a rhetorical question thrown in for emphasis, but I think it counts anyway- so what is that now 12?)"

Fortunately she just pouted and muttered sorry instead of breaking down into tears because no longer had I finished the interrogation than I was beating myself up for sounding like such a typical over reactive parent hypertensive about preparation for vacation. Exhale.

So I proceeded to retrieve the two year old from the driver's seat and scolded her (much more briefly) and then retrieved the rear view mirror from the dash and called Jepsen's Repair to ask about gluing it back on so we could still leave that same day.

Eventually, we not only had out 5 million bags, cases, and parcels, toys, pillows, and audio-visual materials, loaded efficiently, but all 5 family members loaded and strapped in as well. Ready to go. "WAIT- everybody take one last potty break before we go." Everyone got out and ran back inside to use the restroom and then got reloaded and re-strapped. Four o'clock in the goll-darned afternoon.

I put the key in the ignition and started her up. Lo and behold, Annamarie had been back in the van since the mirror had been fixed. How do I know? Because the wipers came on, along with the heater on full blast, the turn signal, and the radio on full volume to a station I never listen to.

A helluva way to run an army, but at least we were finally off and running.

Whoops- almost 2 miles outside of town... we had to turn around and go back home because we'd forgotten Annamarie's blankie. Couldn't spend the night in a strange place without the two-year-old's security blanket.

At that point we were resigned that we probably wouldn't make it past Lincoln. We had found a terrific coupon on the Internet for a hotel in Lincoln. Unfortunately, we don't have a computer printer at home. No problem, no problem- we'll just stop quick at my classroom in Dunlap and print it there, back on the road in a jiffy.

Scientifically speaking, a "jiffy" is a unit of time measuring precisely 0.01 of a second. Twenty minutes later, my wife had started a DVD for the girls and was knocking on my classroom window, trying to figure out what was taking me so long. While I write this, I don't recollect it clearly, but I know it was technical- finding the right website, navigating the stupid website to the right state, city, hotel chain and coupon offer- and then getting the dang thing to print.

Pay dirt! Finally, we were on our way. Again. This put us in Omaha at the peak of rush hour. By the time we were just East of Lincoln, the kids were asleep (or at least docile) so we decided to press on. The further we could go that night, the better. So much for all that time and effort to get that coupon.

It's okay, we had another coupon in one of those tourist pamphlets for a hotel in Grand Island. Of course, at this point everyone was awake, hungry, tired, and crabby. And the youngest three were starting to get on each other's nerves- and therefore on their parent's.

We pulled into the hotel and what do ya know? The pamphlet people had made a misprint and the hotel refused to honor the coupon.

Thus we pushed on. I don't remember what little town was next, Hastings? It just seems like we were in the middle of nowhere when we pulled off for the next hotel for which we had a coupon.

As soon as we entered the parking lot, Ellen asked us, "Mom, why is our hotel next to a junkyard?"

It was more of a deteriorating trailer park, but it certainly was unsavory and at that point, in the dwindling light of twilight, that was enough for us to just keep on driving.

Finally we gave up and settled on a motel in Kearney that was much too expensive for the caliber of accommodations, but from the outside it looked safer than the last one.

So with two beds and five family members we had to figure out who was going to have to sleep with who. In a perfect world, the tree children could be together in one bed and the parents in the other. Just in case you were wondering, there is no perfect world.

I thought that since Grace, the oldest is the most patient (let alone sedate) and shares her room at home with Annamarie, they could sleep together and they may as well be with their mom. I figured that I'd be generous to her since Ellen is the worst sleeper of the three and most likely to toss, turn, and flop around.

This had Ellen seeing red.

"I don't want to sleep with Daddy!"

"Why not? What's the big deal?"

"He snores and his breath stinks!"

Maybe for other people, a perfect world would have had me in a separate room. Come to think of it, as long as it took to get the three of them to settle down and go to sleep, that may have been the perfect world for me.

And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.