Vacation or something like it

Spoiler alert: This one’s not about cancer. Sorry.

Yesterday we returned from our 10-day Southern California vacation…

Saying you’re on vacation while traveling with two very small children is a bit of a euphemism. Even the concept of a family vacation is a little crazy. I don’t think the Pilgrims ever thought it would be fun to pack up their nine children and half of their belongs into the family wagon and head to an unfamiliar place, just to load everything back up and return home in a week or so. They went on treacherous journeys to escape deadly disease or famine, not to relax.

This long stay in California was my idea, of course. Thanksgiving is a big deal in my family because it’s the one time of year we’re all together. In my husband’s family, you can’t miss Christmas. For mine, Turkey Day is the unmissable event.

In years past, Jordan and I have flown to So Cal the day before Thanksgiving and departed a day or two afterwards. It’s a quick trip. But schlepping both of our kids from Minnesota to California (a three-and-a-half-hour plane ride and two time zones away) just for a couple days seemed crazy to me. So I pled my case for a long trip and won.

Orange County is a special place to me, and not just because it’s where my family is from. I lived in Newport Beach when I was fresh out of rehab back in 2020. Technically, I got sober at a facility in Arizona. But as all alcoholics know, it’s what happens after rehab that’s the true test of your sobriety. And for the next six months, Newport Beach kept me sober. And happy.

Southern California is where I finally felt free after years of being trapped under the weight of my alcoholism. It’s where the sunrise over the ocean truly symbolized a new beginning. After 15 years of drinking, I had hope. And I think for the first time in my cognizant life, I felt peace.  

Now, with the enormous weight of cancer on my back, I hoped to return to this peaceful place. The sun would melt my worries away and the ocean would carry my stress into its abyss. For ten whole days, I could escape from the harsh realities of life…

But that’s not how traveling with kids works. And it didn’t take long to realize that my dreams of California serenity may not come true for a second time. I very quickly had to face the harsh truth that kids under two don’t give two apple slices about your vacation…

On our first full day in sunny California, I awoke at five a.m. to the sound of Winston stirring in his travel crib on the baby monitor. Believe it or not, 5am wasn’t too terrible considering the two-hour time difference. He easily could have woken at three or four, so I considered this a win. Jordan was still clocked in for his overnight shift with Peter, who usually wakes up twice during the night. So, it was just me and Winston for the time being. I made him a PB&J (crust carefully peeled off) and put on some Sesame Street.

All was well.

At about 6:30am, Winston started to get antsy. No surprise there. Usually he’s off to daycare, where he’d have a perfectly scheduled day filled with activities and other toddlers to keep him distracted. The reason daycare is so neatly structured is because the predictability keeps these tiny time bombs sane. But vacation is all about having no structure and being able to do whatever you want. So, ironically, the same reason adults love vacation is the reason toddlers mess it up.

To appease Winston, I let him have the third PB&J he was begging for. Stupid me for leaving the jam out—if Winston sees food, he wants it. I had tried offering him other snacks (grapes, apple slices, granola bar, or any of the other thousand treats I’d prudently purchased hours after we arrived). But his eyebrows furled with anger at anything that wasn’t shaped like a sandwich. So, I made the PB&J and placed it on the dining table in front of his booster seat…

…But he didn’t want to sit in the booster seat and started to get feisty again. In my desperation to have a relaxing vacation, I let him eat whatever he wanted, wherever he wanted, and turned on whatever show he wanted. I thought just giving into his demands would make the trip easier. But now—10 days, 70 PB&J sandwiches, and 1,000 hours of Sesame Street later—I regret that decision…

Mom tip: Never let your children rule the roost. Having to parent while on vacation might sound hard, but it’ll be a lot harder if you don’t. Good moms probably already know this, I’m thinking to myself now.

As Winston picked at his crustless sandwich and smeared peanut butter on the faux leather couch of our Airbnb, I heard Peter crying from his crib. Jordan emerged from our bedroom, exhausted from a sleepless night with our jetlagged infant. He was heading for Peter’s room, but I stopped him. Determined to be the perfect mother and wife on this vacation, I told him to go back to bed.

If only I’d just accepted the help…  

So now I had both boys to myself. And that’s when things started to get a little spicy.

I changed Peter’s diaper, successfully thwarting Winston’s attempts to straddle his baby brother. Then I made a bottle, assuming that would settle him down. When it didn’t, I started to chastise myself for not knowing Peter’s cues well enough—thanks to the cancer, I haven’t spent as much time with Peter during his infancy as I did with Winston.  I was already starting to feel like a bad mother and the sun had barely risen… that was fast, even for me!

Winston’s angst started to bubble again now that my hands were tied up with Peter. And when I put Peter down to tend to Winston, Peter got even more upset, which in turn made Winston cry.

And thus, the symphony of tears had begun.

Anyone who’s heard two children wailing at the same time knows how both aggravating and a little funny it is. When they’re going off in tandem at full steam, you almost have to laugh. It’s a Darwinian response, an evolutionary tool to survive these melt downs.

But I had a failsafe way to ease everyone’s tears. We would all go for a walk.

This simple solution is my go-to at home because we live a couple blocks away from a coffee shop. The kiddos get some fresh air, and I get a latte. It’s a win-win. In fact, the main reason I chose our Airbnb was because of its proximity to the Newport Beach boardwalk. Lined with seafood and Mexican restaurants, cafes, a corndog stand, and a homemade ice cream shop, it’s a walker’s dream. When I booked the Airbnb, I envisioned waking up at dawn with my beautiful little boys, calmly placing them into the double stroller, and breathing in the salty air on the way to a delicious cup of creamy caffeine.  

But the Airbnb (aka reality) posed some challenges that my imagination failed to anticipate. First off, our unit was on the second floor of a beach “condo”—really just a tiny house that the owners divvied up to get twice as much money from beach-hungry travelers. Getting two little boys (one of whom can’t walk and the other who only knows how to go up the stairs) was an obstacle in itself.

Secondly, the stroller was in our rented Chevy Tahoe, which was parked down the block and around the corner because it was too monstrous to fit in the dollhouse-sized garage of our Airbnb. (The listing clearly stated that large SUVs wouldn’t fit in the garage, but I had neglected to go through the fine print when I was searching for our vacation dream house.)

It took a minute to think through the logistics while both children were screaming at the top of their lungs, but I came up with a plan: I’d wear Peter in the baby sling while carrying Winston down the stairs to the sidewalk, at which point he could hold my hand as we walked to the car. Physically challenging? Yes. A little dangerous? Perhaps. Doable? Let’s hope so.

I readied the boys for our outdoor adventure, but Winston refused to wear shoes and socks, protesting with this high-pitched shrieking sound he’s recently started using to get what he wants. It’s extremely effective. I didn’t want the shrieking to wake Jordan (I will be the perfect wife this trip!) so I let Winston go barefoot. After strapping Peter into an ill-wrapped papoose (those are always harder to tie when the baby going into it is crying) I hoisted Winston onto my hip and proceeded to walk down the narrow, rickety steps of our humble beach house.  

I would have let Winston walk barefoot to the car if it hadn’t been for the group of people gallivanting past us just as we touched ground. I wasn’t worried about him stepping on glass or heroin needles. After all, this wasn’t Minneapolis. But because I didn’t want these strangers whom I’d never see again label me as a bad mother for letting my child’s innocent feet touch the pavement, mom-guilt forced me to lug the combined 46 pounds of dead weight dangling from body all the way to the car.

The next step was getting the car keys out of my left pocket, which was currently being safeguarded by Winston’s cute little butt. Since I was now committed to keeping his feet from touching the pavement (like some sick game I was playing with myself), I transferred Winston to my other hip, dragging him across his poor little brother who was drooping from the failing sling. Peter got kicked in the face, but at least I managed to get the keys out of my pocket and open the trunk.

Finally, there was the stroller—a Titanic-sized transformer on wheels. I just had to get it out. If I’m only carrying one child, I can yank this top-of-the-line contraption out of the trunk with one hand. But not with two. So in order to free up my hands, I throw Winston into his car seat, something I wish I’d thought of sooner before letting Peter take a shoe to the face.

Now, with both hands free and just one infant strapped to my midsection, I jerked the stroller out from the trunk and onto the street. When I leaned down to pop it open, Peter’s tiny head fell out of the too-loose papoose and started dangling like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. His cry morphed from a sad moan to a terrified shriek. And of course, at that very moment—while Peter was doing the ol’ dangle-and-wail and Winston was screaming from his car seat—a carefree, sun-kissed young woman in her Lulu Lemons came strutting by. If there was ever a time when she wanted children, we ended that for her.   

Once the stroller was open, I grabbed Winston from his car seat, forced him into the stroller, released the break, and started to push… Finally, we were walking!!

By that point, I was too exhausted to go to the boardwalk. The Pavilions grocery store was closer and had a Starbucks. And surely they’d have a family bathroom where we could all regroup, right?

Wrong.

Having become too used to the family-friendliness of Minnesota, I forgot that there aren’t a lot of public restrooms in California. Too many homeless crazies and drunk surfers I suppose. So, without a place to lay poor Peter down and fix the papoose, I resorted to taking him out all together and tossing him over my shoulder. I held him close to my ear, anxiously bouncing and making loud “shushing” noises that I gathered weren’t very comforting based on his persistent crying. I pushed the stroller with my one free hand, bumping into the lower shelves and leaving a trail of knocked over jars and boxes in its wake.

Winston, mesmerized by the inside of the grocery store, had calmed down a little. But this brief moment of relief came to an end when I made it to the Tylenol aisle.  Unfortunately, my drug of choice was situated directly across from Winston’s drug of choice—the fruit pouches we had recently eliminated from his diet through rigorous will power and determination.  

When Winston saw the colorful array of sugary pouches, he started pointing and pleading in one-year-old gibberish. I stood my ground and told him no—not because I was trying to make a smart parenting decision, but because I didn’t know how I’d be able to open the damn thing. Upon hearing his least favorite word (“no”) he revved up the high-pitched screech. We were now a public spectacle, if we weren’t already.

Amidst the chaos, Jordan texted asking where we were. Texting back was a challenge, but I managed to respond with brief phrases explaining my predicament:

“At Pavilions. Kids going nuts. Peter won’t go in sling so holding him. Winston screaming. Horrible.”

I shoved the phone back in my pocket. Thank God I wore something with pockets. I felt the phone buzz. I was sure it was Jordan sending his sympathies, but I wasn’t going to go through the cumbersome process of checking my phone again. I needed to get out of there, fast.

I headed to the self-checkout lane, which was situated next to a display of People Magazine and other rags. For whatever reason, that made me think of those stories you hear about mothers just up and abandoning their families. And for a split second, I thought… “Yeah, I get it.”

Both children were crying at the top of their lungs as I struggled to scan the Tylenol box, so a nice store clerk came over to help me. I, of course, interpreted this as her telling me I wasn’t doing a good job as a mother. It doesn’t matter that she very kindly said, “I’ve been there!” Her empathy, for whatever reason, just made me feel even more pathetic. She was pitying me. Just imagine if she knew I had stage IV cancer! I kept the beanie on my bald head to spare her feelings and maintain whatever dignity I had left.

The three of us exited the store and headed towards the Airbnb. As we turned the corner, I saw Jordan sprinting towards us from two blocks away. Apparently, the text I’d neglected to read said, “Oh no!!! I’m coming!!!”

We were saved.

I plodded towards my knight in shining Vikings sweatshirt, slumped over the stroller. The papoose dangled from my body to the pavement like a poorly constructed mummy costume. It was as limp and tired as I was.

Jordan took Peter from my arm and kissed Winston on the forehead, greeting us with his trademark sunny disposition that can be a little irritating when I’m in such a foul mood. But it’s what I needed to hear even if it’s not what I wanted to hear. His positivity always helps me out of whatever hole I’ve dug myself into. Eventually.

We made it back to the Airbnb. Elmo was still singing about the alphabet and half of a crustless PB&J sandwich sat on the middle of the coffee table, sans plate. Like nothing had happened.

Winston went back to his non-routine. Peter fell asleep. Jordan started looking up the closest breakfast burrito. And I resorted to brewing myself a K-Pod, having never made it to the Starbucks.

It was just 7:30am. We still had whole day ahead of us…

The rest of our trip contained several iterations of this story. I was going to talk about our trip to Disneyland, but I’ve already rambled on for far too long. Let’s just say there’s a reason Disney doesn’t charge admission to children under three. They don’t want to get sued by angry parents who brought their children to what was supposed to be the “most magical place on earth.”

So, no, it wasn’t the most relaxing trip in the world. And I was naïve to think that it would be. I mean, whoever said traveling with kids was easy? “Traveling used to be tough, but now that I have kids, it’s a lot easier.” That is a sentence that no one in the history of the universe has ever said. So I’m not sure why I expected this trip to be any different.

But here’s the God’s honest truth… it was an amazing trip.

No, it wasn’t as relaxing as I hoped it would be, and yes, there were some challenging times. But for every stressful memory like the one above, there were many wonderful ones—like seeing my family for the first time since my diagnosis, taking Winston on the Balboa Island Ferry with my mom, spending a day poolside with Jordan, eating a Poke Bowl from my favorite beach haunt, guiltlessly devouring the best-I’ve-ever-had ice cream on the pier, and, every once in a while, doing nothing at all.

I loved every crazy minute of our trip. And what’s even better is that I love being back.

Ten days ago, if someone had told me it would be 15 degrees and snowy the day of our return, I would have been devastated. But now, as I look out my window and see the snow-covered street, I am happy. And I feel the sense of peace that I was searching for in the warmth of the California sun.  

Maybe it wasn’t the actual being on vacation that I needed, but the perspective of being away. I needed the opportunity to miss the humdrums of normal life so I could be excited to get back to it. And it worked. After ten days in California, I can safely say I am very happy to be home…  

…and that my kids are back in daycare.