Vacation and all its bliss is over. A good time was had by all. We can't wait to go back and do it all again next year.
We leave for a week of beach time soon and while I'm busy packing and making list after crazy list on all the things we need to bring on this hopefully blissful beach side vacation, I am also in the process of powering down. Yes, I am bringing my laptop with me while away but I've already set up my work email to vacation status. The laptop is for short intervals of loading work onto sites and that is all. I'm busy this week doing the advance work and while I'm away posts will load up automatically, I hope. Add to the list that I have already been shutting off the drone of the media to get myself ready and I think I will be set for a total mind and body vacation.
Instead of watching TV on my laptop while getting dressed or listening to NPR or some loud, crass morning disc jockey I've been trying to enjoy the silence.
H took the girls to the spray grounds the other day and instead of watching TV to relax I just shut everything off and read a magazine in full without interruption. OK, so a nap interrupted the reading but it was so nice to hear only the sound of the A/C buzzing and not the noises of The City or The Hills in the background.
I feel the need to do this now so it won't be such a shock to the system when I bring my phone but leave it in my purse almost all week so I can be free from reading Facebook statuses like, "I mowed the whole yard today." Awesome. Good for you. I needed to spend five minutes learning that because, why? Or tweeting that I just ate a gigantic ice cream cone when no one cares, except my thighs.
All this powering down has gotten to me too, but not in the way you would think. As H and I watched a show that had literally been in our DVR for a year plus I could hear a gentle tip-tapping sound in the background. The commercials silently fast-forwarded by and it got louder and more insistent. He was texting. There in the dark, while watching this show, every time we had a two minute interval the tippy-tap-tap sound would begin again. It made me a bit twitchy at first. Then irritable, "Can't you just stop checking Facebook for more than fifteen minutes? Is fantasy baseball really that important?!" Then I got angry. I wanted to shout, "If that was me doing that, you would ask me to stop!" And it would be in an irritable voice too, not nicely. I wanted to chuck the phone out the door and officially cut him off now. But I didn't. I just quietly seethed in the dark thinking, "If that phone comes out next week and it's not some sort of emergency it might just be making new friends next to some hot dogs on a grill or literally swimming with the fishes."
TD has been on spring break this week and for some reason I thought I would get the same amount of work done and do fun projects with her. How ridiculous is that? Between everyday life, enjoying the weather, searching for an NTU (new to us) car and work I realize I was in a fantasy world.
Instead of tweeting like mad, posting contests at MPR or even keeping up with this blog we have taken walks, picked flowers, gone to the playground, baked, researched cars and gone on play dates. I feel like I haven't accomplished very much when it comes to the world inside my computer but having my kids sufficiently worn out each day from so much outdoor activity has been yes, a lot of work, but more in line with spring break.
Besides, work is always there. The kids won't always be this young. No one ever said from their death bed, "I wish I had spent more time tweeting, er, at the office."
When I saw this sign I assumed this would be the weirdest moment of our trip to Hershey, PA. Well, we all know what happens when you assume, right?
Since our room wasn't ready yet at the incredibly family friendly Hershey Lodge (TD jumped up and down when she realized she could check-in to the hotel herself.) we decided to check out the Butterfly House at the Children's Garden. TD loves Fancy Nancy and her azure butterflies. The kid was so excited about seeing purple butterflies flitting about that she jumped down from our truck and literally hit the pavement. We all heard the smack and instantly our day turned upside down. H ripped off his shirt and used it to cover the gash while I found a bottle of water to rinse the cut. When he took away the t-shirt blood poured out of the wound and I tried my best to clean it out. We knew right away that an ER visit was imminent. Luckily, there is a magnificent one right near the Lodge.
The Hershey Medical Center was fantastic. They took us in right away and tended to our needs without a fuss or long wait. While it took away from our day and we needed to reschedule some things the minute we mentioned Chocolate World TD perked right up. 
Typically I am not an amusement park type person. I don't do coasters and I'm afraid of heights. However, I found myself having a whole lot of fun on this trip. It was our first time going somewhere besides a relatives house for vacation and the girls did incredibly well. TD rode almost every kiddie ride with or without H and I and The Comedian napped on an off throughout the day. The staff at Hershey Park was always friendly and accommodating just as they were at the Lodge, Hershey Hotel and The Hershey Story museum where each girl created a front-page newspaper story with photo.
We capped off our trip with a tasty brunch at the Hershey Grill with some of the Hershey Company staff who then showed us around the Milton Hershey School. That place is amazing! It's grounds are picturesque and there is an air of serenity that surrounds the place. It is a combination elementary, middle and high school that looks much like a university campus. I am eager to learn more about this portion of Hershey as it is a worthy organization that helps needy children from all over giving them an outstanding education.
While we were all exhausted by Sunday we were sad to leave Hershey. We did so much in such a short time. We felt we hit just the tip of all the town and parks had to offer. We cannot wait to go back and explore it all further. It was the perfect first family vacation for us and we can't thank the Hershey Company and all the staff enough for making it possible.
Besides, who wouldn't love a trip that included all this?
"Are we going to Pretzel land today?" TD asks continuously. To her Pennsylvania is the land of the giant pretzel thanks to her US Maps placemat. However, after this weekend I am quite sure PA will be known as Chocolate World from here on out.
I'm doing laundry like a whirling dervish today. I just finished unpacking myself from my trip and off we go again. I'm looking forward to this opportunity for some downtime with the family. Lately our schedules have been so missed matched that we are almost never home at the same time. The kids are coming and going and so are we.
I'm not concerned about the car ride to Hershey. We've got car trips down. Rather I'm deeply, deeply concerned about us all sharing a hotel room. We've got light sleepers, we've got nappers and we all have different bed times. Dictators don't sleep well when others are present. I fear The Comedian will feel the need to put on a late, late show complete with hysterical meltdowns if we are all in one room together.
You know what else I fear? The fact that I spent so much of the early part of the summer Shredding, running and in general trying to get fit again and then since Blogher I've let it all go. My schedule has been so insane I've been scarfing down disgusting travel/event food and not only am I pasty white (That whole skin cancer thing!) but I'm a pile of squish right about now. I'm not to jazzed about putting on my swimsuit. I'm slathering on the sunless tanner and wondering if I should try and draw abs on with it. Sounds like a fab idea, no?
Aside from all that though it is already August and I feel like this is the first time it will really feel like summer. We are hitting the road, this hockey fan wants to see The Bears' Den and we're all excited beyond belief to be spending this time together as a family.
You know what woke me up this morning? Myself. Then I sat there and read for almost an hour.
I completed my latest MPR review in under twenty minutes.
Make-up is strewn all over my bathroom counter and I don't have to pick it up in fear that little hands will commence their own smear campaign.
I'm meeting a friend for lunch today that I haven't seen since she visited me in the hospital with The Comedian. I don't have to be back at any time in particular.
H and I saw a movie in the middle of the day. We came home felt it was too quiet and went out for dinner. Crayons with place mats not included.
TD and The Comedian left for their Nana's yesterday. Since then H and I have had the most stupid looking grins on our faces.
I can actually hear the fan on my laptop just humming away. The quiet in my house right now is bliss.
The radio in the kitchen is playing its familiar morning radio show, the smell of coffee is wafting through the house and all the bags from our trip are unpacked. I stand completely amazed that we made it up to CT and back without much of a blip. Nothing blogworthy to write about in two whole eight hour drives. I just might have a place in parental history.
I want to say a big thank you to our fellow travelers at the Delaware rest stop who stopped by our lunch table to remark on what beautiful children I have. It brightened my day and gave me a bit more energy to get back into the car with my two "angels". It would have been even better if one of those fellow travelers had read my mind and gotten me a steaming hot latte from the nearby SBUX, but no worries.
This trip gets mixed reviews though for a few reasons. I wanted to head up to New England and relax and play with my kids on the beach but the weather was too cold and wet almost the entire trip. The girls had a rough time settling in the first few days and everyone either had a cold or was on the verge of one. We kept busy despite the rainy weather, traveling to different parts of CT and RI and visiting family. It proved to be all a bit more tiring than I imagined and I think the dreary weather did me in a tad, combined with the fact that while I'm excited for my parents to move closer (Read: ECSTATIC!) I will miss having them in a house that I have now begun to think of as a second home and one that gives me my New England fix on a regular basis. The declining health of my grandmother just about did me in all together though.
It is hard to see someone you love and who helped raise you no longer know who you are. I tried to have that whole "that's the circle of life" attitude but that didn't exactly pan out. It weighed on my mind quite a bit and a touch of sadness hung about me for most of the trip. I'm not the type of person who can sprinkle fairy dust on a situation and I tend to feel things a bit more than others sometimes. This is a woman I always wanted to be like and to see that very essence of her just disappear saddened me more than I could even anticipate and perhaps realized at the time. I feel as if I have walked into a room in my home and all the furniture has been removed, the pictures have been taken off the walls and everything is just devoid of emotion and memories and no one can give me an explanation as to why this has happened.
It made for a very disconnected feeling on my part and a deep yearning for the sun and hugs from H. Neither of which were attainable at the time. I couldn't wait to return home and find both. When we did come home it was as if the darkness just clung to me. My lack of ability to coat the world with the aforementioned fairy dust has made me unlikable it seems. There is a disconnect in my house because of this and it makes me angry. I'm not one to sweep emotions under a rug or save them for later. I never have been and I can't apologize for that and I don't see it as a character flaw.
I can make lemonade from lemons with the hardiest of them but I can't pretend very well and walk around wearing rose-colored glasses especially when the moment doesn't call for it. I'll be fine in a few days I'm sure. Every day life is already grabbing a hold of me and not allowing me stay in this for very long. However, I should be allowed to feel what I'm feeling and not have to make apologies or play Tinkerbell for someone else just to make it better for them.
I'm wearing $2 Walmart underwear with a plastic peace sign hanging on them. Can you say teeny bopperesque? Yup. I'm going to admit it is the first time I've bought the big W underwear and I can only describe a lot of it as eye-searing tricktastic looking. The 3 a.m. hookers in the District might think it is too loud.
At 3:59 p.m. yesterday I realized that both my parents had whole dinner plates full of food in front of them and they were eating...um, dinner. I had dinner at 4 o'clock people! Isn't that earlier than the early bird special?
It is day four of intense clouds, rain and low temps. For my probable last trip up to the New England area it is kind of a bust. I'm missing the beach but the idea of dragging a baby and toddler to the cloudy sea is not an idea that is going to make a Parenting magazine vacation column any time soon.
The upshot? Country road runs with the classic New England stone walls and falling down barns. It is like a scene from Yankee magazine. Some ridiculously tasty food and the RI end cap at the local Stop n Shop was literally one stop shopping the other day when I picked up Autocrat and clam cake mix in one seconds time.
It's Friday and while I'm flummoxed by the whole Japanese rent-a-cat trend my mind is also wandering in the planning direction. My anal retentive list mania is peaking as I get ready for my first solo road trip with two kids. We leave next week and I think I have four separate lists going already. I'm OCD planner.
My parents think I have a death wish. My father asked me what I was trying to prove. Only a nutball would want to drive for eight hours with two small kids. I keep telling TD this will be some grand adventure. A grand adventure that will involve not kicking the back of the car seat, any yelling in the car and many, many snacks and DVDs. She thinks it sounds like quite the kick ass time.
Any advice about taking a trip like this with wee ones is appreciated. And no, Valium is not a valid suggestion. Though it does sound heavenly.
It's 385 miles to Connecticut, we got a full tank of gas, a full box of bunny crackers, it will be dark, and we'll be wearing pajamas. Hit it.
I may be a lucky SOB of a blogger for not getting hate mail but I am a lazy one too.
Quite spontaneously on Friday, we decided to blow our pop stand of a town and leave our community pool in the dust for the weekend. We headed south in search of cool riverside breezes and the ‘only for us’ pool that is my mother in law’s house. I feel like Wallace from ‘The Wire’ as I listen to a sound that has become foreign to me. It is the sound of crickets at night. Despite having such prehistorically large crickets in our basement that jump out at you like ghouls in the night, we do not ever hear them even in suburbia. I had forgotten lightening bugs existed as well.
So here we are.
No Wi-Fi for me and barely any cell reception, ridiculously behind on my work.
T.D. as spoiled as ever by almost two weeks of non-stop Nana time.
I’ve spent the last few days doing nothing but reading, Oil!, seeing not a moment of television and eating succulent peaches, juicy pieces of melon and gazing with white hot longing at everyone else’s perspiring bottles of beer. I might give an arm right now for a bottle of Blue Moon Pale Ale if asked but instead I content myself to lay by the pool soaking up some sunscreen halted rays of sun. It is the last of this for a while because as of the end of last week we had some rather big news.
H has a new job and it starts in a week.
The back to school countdown has begun.
Oh, look- I'm home again. Jiggity Jig. After an uneventful car ride, seriously- I take back all I said about DVD players in cars for kids- that thing is a life-saver in the "WHAT?! We are not going back to Mem & Pep's house?!" meltdown moment that little portable player was a miracle worker- we arrived home safe and sound mid-day yesterday.
Some things I noticed-
I am back to eating fruit as a snack in under six hours. For some reason my parents house is a vortex for carb consuming. All I do is eat thigh thickening chips, ass-spreading brownies and more while I am there. I ingest fried foods as if I'm on shore leave and it cannot be stopped. Sure, I fall into many mid-morning and mid-afternoon, aw hell, mid-evening stupors more often than I care to admit, but I am powerless to stop it. The fruit bowl remains intact the entire time we visit save for those moments where I gorge myself on cherries or something.
I didn't walk at all or exercise at all while there. I guess that is truly a vacation?
Juice really is crack for toddlers and when Mem & Pep serve it at breakfast? Well, let's just say T.D. is already suffering from withdrawal.
My parents are obsessed with the turkey that comes into their yard each day at precisely four o'clock. Now T.D. is too. She has deemed the patch of dirt in their yard where it dusts itself as, "turkey dirt."
No matter what state you are in or what time of day it is McDonald's sucks my ass. They cannot get an order right for the life of them. Sure, give me two milks instead of one. Forget my apple slices and give my kid the fries. I care nothing about my sodium content clearly. And why are all the rest stops on 95 ALL THE SAME?! If I passed you up once Roy Rogers I am sure as hell going to pass you up again.
Jordan Marsh (or should I call them Jordin Mahsh) blueberry muffins do exsist. And they ROCK!
Things that NEVER Change-
Despite having Alzheimer's and being in her late 80's my grandmother still managed to tell me that T.D. was going to "poke her eye out" with her plastic fork at the family cook out. Like clockwork every year.
The top 40 radio station I listened to as a tween and teen is STILL the same. Truly, New Englanders resist change like a cats to water.
I will never stop laughing when I hear the announcements on the intercom at the local town beach, "Ahtenchun awl beach patrons, due to the instense fohg, please only go in the watah up to ya knees." I am usually the only one laughing.
My father now has an outdoor and indoor (they work in tandem) weather device. At any given time throughout the day he announces the wind velocity, precipitation level and current temp at the front and back of their house. It fascinates him.
My mother is queen of bussing. She hovers and cannot wait to bus your glass, plate or dish. She will even butter your english muffin without asking. I am still twelve and she still tells me how to work everything in the kitchen as if I might blow it up or set it on fire at any given time.
And now... it's back to the real world. Excuse me while I nurse my plants back to health, return emails, actually try and do some work and learn to live without the scent of the ocean, Del's lemonade, afternoon naps and reading on a front porch. Le Sigh... I miss it all already. Even the bussing.
Hey look! It's a pregnant lady eating ice cream. Go figure.
Gratuitous beach/cute kid shot. 
Now that is a clamcake! Or fritter if you are like not from South County Rhode Island and want to be a weirdo or something. This is in no way a crab cake. It's all fried dough goodness. At last count I consumed about ten of them. Check out the classic scenic wood paneling on the walls. This place hasn't changed since the 1950s. My parents went on dates here and now T.D. climbs into her favorite chair like she's a regular. It does not get any better than that.Scene: Guestroom at my parents house. H & I have become incredibly lazy taking long afternoon naps in the summer heat. We have holed ourselves up in this room like teenagers with paperbacks, wi-fi, drinks and snacks. The dog doesn't even enter this domain.
H: I'm thirsty. Go downstairs and get me water.
Me: Um... I'm thirsty too. I'm pregnant and dehydrated....
H: Ha! Get to it little woman!
Me: I'm on vacation!
H: Moms, don't get a vacation and your womanly duties are seriously lacking lately. You should be vacuuming and ironing my shirts or something...
Five minutes later, I have my water.
I'm not even going to discuss the amount of clamcakes I've consumed in the last few days and how yes, Mr.X they do exist. They are not and never will be RI crab cakes. Just ewww.
There are claymation penguins eating cake with seals in party hats. The main topic of conversation/argument in the house is the ever changing temperature reading off the side of my parents house.
My Father: Ooh! It's 38! Look at the sky!
My Mother: 38?! (utter disbelief that it could be 38 degrees rings in her voice) Why that is ten degrees colder than yesterday!
My parents are fascinated by weather. My father's dream is to have some sort of Wizard of Oz like capability or machine on the premises that would tell him the weather every five minutes or so down to the last centigrade, jet stream and barometric pressure. If my father had to live in a climate like sunny So Cal where seasons are hard to differentiate he wouldn't know what to do with himself. He is the Oz of weather. He and my mother confer on the temperature every half hour or so as if the each degree change is a prophecy of some sort. The amount of birds by the bird feeder by the hour are also a constant source of discussion.
Despite being in my 30's, being married, having a mortgage, dog and kid I come home to my parents house and feel like a teen again. My mother feeds me, I do the same chores I did as a kid, and my father controls the remote to the television. For the most part I don't really mind it. It's oddly comforting yet strangling at the same time. See just like being 15 again!
At some point last night after a rousing viewing of Antiques Roadshow Savannah embellished with carrot cake I found myself engrossed in a PBS special about the life of a lobsters. To be fair it was actually, 'The Realm of the Lobster'. Sounds more enticing, no? It was at this moment that I felt like I was about nine years old again and I should be sitting on the floor of the living room watching TV. My myopic self would sit incredibly close to the set and watch hours of National Geographic and public television specials with my parents. It's no wonder I turned out the way I did when a good night at home was watching a three foot long lobsta duke it out with another lobsta of lesser size and claw width. I could have sat there entranced all night as baby lobstas were hatched into the wild into the Bay of Fundy and tried to survive, but H nudged me that it was time to get a move on if we were going to take advantage of free baby-sitting and head to the movies.
As H and I headed out in the sleeting rain (a 9:30 show! We are giddy like teenagers about to miss curfew) my father yelled out the front door that the current temp was 32. My Mom warned us to watch out for deer and to remember to use our high beams. Thanks Mom!
It's good to be home. If nothing else being made to feel like a teenager again by your parents does indeed make you feel like, well, a teenager again. This time though I feel like H is the cool boyfriend I always wanted in high school but never had. He has a better car too.
I've been somewhat productive while here as proof in this.
The truck was packed. Blearily my eyes tried to focus as my father woke us up and told us to get in the truck, it was almost time to "hit the road." We were Sebago bound. Sebago Lake, Maine.
Every year my family would pack up the car and go to Sebago. We would head out on the five hour journey around 3 a.m. "We've got to get there early so we can pick the best campsite!", my Dad would declare. Each year I was allowed to invite one friend to spend ten days camping with us. This particular year I chose my friend Julie. I couldn't wait! It was freedom! Showers that operated by coin! Canadians in speedos! S'mores by the campfire and endless hours of roaming by the lake. Pre-teen heaven, well, minus the Canadian flag speedos.
Propped up on pillows, ensconced in our sleeping bags and surrounded by books and other on-the-road activities we giggled ourselves silly despite the early hour. Immediately we dug into the JUMBO bag of Sweet Tarts my mother had stowed in the back. First we ate them with wild abandon. We cackled through our shared sugar high, too hyped up to read. Then we got choosy deeming only the yellow, green and orange Sweet Tarts worthy of our ingestion. Pink and Purple were lame. Yet abundant. Sweet Tarts were scattered all over the back seat. At one point a Sweet Tart food fight broke out. By the time we reached the campground were sick to death of ALL Sweet Tarts as we gazed out at the Maine forests in a Sweet Tart haze. Blech. "DO NOT MENTION SWEET TARTS! EVER!" we declared. The mere sight of a wrapper made us queasy and it was only 8 a.m.
We waited five hours for our campsite number to be called. Five hours of sour stomachs, overtired tween-age girls complaining about the damp air, and desperately wanting a swim. I don't know how my parents stood it. The sky began to take on an ominous look to it. By the time we set up camp it had begun to rain. And rain. Then it rained some more. My Dad dug ditches around the tents and the covered picnic table. There would be no swimming on this trip. Only dampness and wet. A campfire was a no-go. No campfire=No s'mores. I got a little cranky. We spent a majority of our time at the covered table by lantern light drawing silly portraits with equally silly names while listening to Berlin on the radio over and over again until my mother snapped. It was the summer of 'Top Gun' after all.
The rain continued. Julie and I had to take down our tiny tent and move in with my parents. Our Tiger Beat pictures of Michael J. Fox had would no longer stay on the tent walls. It was tragic! The rain kept coming. The campground was like a giant sponge and the lake rose higher. Would our tent convert into an ark? One night as the ditch by the covered table overflowed I noticed something swimming by my feet. What's this? A Crayfish had made its way from the lake to our camp site. It was taking up residence with us now. I told him, "It's not any better in here!" The rain poured on. We didn't even need to use the coin operated showers. We could just step outside if we wanted to. We all felt a little bit stir crazy.
On the ninth day of rain, our last day of camping/living under water, the rain lightened. By day ten as we packed up the site the sun came out in all its glorious yellow brightness. Not a cloud in the sky. We begged my parents to let us stay another few days. Can't we just take a swim? We'll put the crayfish back now and find him a good home! No dice. The truck was packed revealing an avalanche of hidden Sweet Tarts and Sweet Tart wrappers. I looked at Julie and she looked as green as I felt. "DON'T MENTION SWEET TARTS! EVER!" we declared and climbed into the truck for the five hour ride home. This time we would be eating Reese's Cups!
Looking back now there really wasn't much we could do about the rain. My parents were smart enough to bring along tons of "fun" food, books, and drawing paper to keep two girls occupied. The radio/tv combo helped a lot too I might add. This trip didn't taint me from camping either. I will continue the camping tradition with my kids and will remember to pack the plastic, a shovel for digging ditches, and be prepared for any errant crayfish (perhaps with a pot?) that might cross our paths. As well as a bag of candy. Just not Sweet Tarts.
*Author's Note- In the Summer of 2000, I finally decided to take the plunge and eat a Sweet Tart. I ate every color but purple and pink. I still can't. The idea still makes me sick.
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