Vacation: Definition Revised
I recently looked up the definition of “vacation” in my online version of Merriam - Webster. This is what I found:
Vacation(n.) A respite or a time of respite from something; a scheduled period during which activity is suspended, a period of exemption from work granted to an employee;a period spent away from home or business in travel or recreation (ie. “had a restful vacation at the beach”); an act or an instance of vacating.
I don’t know about you, but after a week away with my family on such a “vacation,” I am considering petitioning Merriam-Webster to update their definition. Or at the very least qualify it with this ending statement: “…for those without young children.”
For those of us with young children, vacations are hardly a break. Activity is not suspended, it is likely increased, and you would rarely describe it with an adjective like “restful.” If you don’t believe me, take a minute to run down a list of necessary vacation elements and see if you don’t need to sit down and put your feet up for a minute.
First, there’s the packing. Gone are the days when you and your husband were able to nimbly fit all you would need for the week into your MEC backpack and the hatch of your Ford Festiva. Now, unless you are the proud owner of a reconverted school bus or greyhound, you are likely riding along in a mini-van packed to the gills, or nervously keeping an eye on the roof of your station wagon…watching for any shift or shimmy of your car top carrier.
And we all know who gets to cut back on luggage in order to make room for all the “necessities” of travelling with small children. It’s either that cute pair of shoes or the porta-potty, and let’s face it, you are not about to let your preschooler use your new kicks in an emergency on the side of the road, so you better stick with the porta-potty. Between all the needed diapers, playpen, stroller, snacks, extra clothing, books, toys and beloved stuffed animals/pillows/blankets, there is barely room for your requisite book (as if you’ll have time to read it!!!) and extra large bottle of Tylenol.
The good news is that as you add more children to your crew you begin to realize that you actually CAN DO without the baby bathtub and you begin to get creative with what you’ve got (haven’t you heard that other saying, “don’t throw the baby out with the dishwater?”). Or perhaps you just realize that you don’t actually NEED four different kinds of baby seat to get through the week. (Come on now, you remember that first trip away from home with your tiny firstborn!!)
Then there is the method of travel. If you have elected to travel by automobile, you are fully aware of the bells and whistles (literally) that tend to go along with that means of transportation. The endless loop of Fisher Price Kids Silly Songs CD’s, the frequent and yet ill-timed bathroom stops, and the attempts to distract kids who are unwilling to spend one more minute in their car-seat restraints. Not to mention those regular times where you are turned around in your seat, rear end dangerously impairing your husband’s view of the road, reaching into the back seat to: 1)break up a fight, 2)rescue Mr. Wiggles who has fallen between the seat and the door, or 3) re-buckle your precocious and button savy 18 month old back into his car-seat. You carefully time the longer stretches of driving to coincide with naps, but alas…your usually great sleeper decides there will be no-napping in the car that day; their resulting grouchiness only adding to the “festive vacation mood” that is threatening to send you into the next Petro-Can restroom for a sanity-saving time out (no matter its hygienic conditions!)
And don’t even get me started on Air Travel! If the thought of keeping a preschooler and a toddler restricted to the tiny confines of an airline seat(and do they keep getting smaller, or is it just me and all the kids in my lap?) conjures up scenes of peaceful relaxation, let me kindly suggest you get your head examined! Granted, there is the complimentary beverage cart that is good for a few minutes of distraction, and believe me, taking a preschooler to the bathroom every 30 minutes in airplane facilities is a real hoot! But imagine my surprise on a recent cross-Pacific flight, when our fail-safe plan of letting our 2 year old watch T.V. to pass the time was imploded by a satellite feed that ended just after clearing Vancouver Island air space. (And yes, we do have a small portable DVD player…that just HAPPENED to quit working the evening before we boarded the flight.)
Soon you find yourself allowing your son to play peek-a-boo with the old ladies seated behind you and pray they don’t tire of his adorable smile TOO quickly. The entire flight you are on pins and needles praying your kids aren’t disturbing the travelers around you who (wisely??) elected to leave their children home with the grandparents on this trip, and desperately hoping that somehow they will magically fall asleep awkwardly across your lap; causing you to let the food cart pass by, get a gluteal cramp from sitting still so long and prolong a trip to the bathroom until your bladder is threatening to explode, all in the name of not disrupting the welcomed slumber. Restful, no?
Which brings us to the dreaded, “sleeping away from home.” Whether in a tent, a hotel room or everything in between, this brings with it its own set of minefields. The efforts of putting children to sleep all in the same area does seem to get easier as they age, but for me the kicker is having them sleep in the same room as me, period. Every breath, roll and bit of sleep talk startles me awake, then I lay there…afraid to engage in my usual tossing and turning and pillow flipping lest I wake anyone up and have to start the process all over again. I remember camping in our tent with our daughter, at the time she was 19 months old. No matter how late it got, we couldn’t make her understand that it was time to go to sleep; us being in the same “room” and all. Her giggling and shrieking at 2AM, “Tickle Daddy! Tickle Daddy!” was almost enough to make us pack up the tent and drive home right then and there.
Does this kind of vacation sound like “respite” to you? Like, “suspended activity?” Can you see any reason why one would pair the word “restful” with it?? And I’ve only just begun! I could go on and on about the vacation activities, family gatherings and time-zone changes that bring their own set of constraints on your efforts to relax.
Indeed, vacations for families with small children are exhausting, exasperating and easier said than done. But you’ve got to admit that the memories made are worth EVERY SINGLE MINUTE. And you’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. In fact, you likely will…next year! The irony is, you’ll probably even look forward to it.
As for “respite,” it’s like my husband always says, “Honey, we can rest when we’re dead.”
Sometimes that seems like an awful long time to wait...just for Webster's version of a vacation.
Vacation(n.) A respite or a time of respite from something; a scheduled period during which activity is suspended, a period of exemption from work granted to an employee;a period spent away from home or business in travel or recreation (ie. “had a restful vacation at the beach”); an act or an instance of vacating.
I don’t know about you, but after a week away with my family on such a “vacation,” I am considering petitioning Merriam-Webster to update their definition. Or at the very least qualify it with this ending statement: “…for those without young children.”
For those of us with young children, vacations are hardly a break. Activity is not suspended, it is likely increased, and you would rarely describe it with an adjective like “restful.” If you don’t believe me, take a minute to run down a list of necessary vacation elements and see if you don’t need to sit down and put your feet up for a minute.
First, there’s the packing. Gone are the days when you and your husband were able to nimbly fit all you would need for the week into your MEC backpack and the hatch of your Ford Festiva. Now, unless you are the proud owner of a reconverted school bus or greyhound, you are likely riding along in a mini-van packed to the gills, or nervously keeping an eye on the roof of your station wagon…watching for any shift or shimmy of your car top carrier.
And we all know who gets to cut back on luggage in order to make room for all the “necessities” of travelling with small children. It’s either that cute pair of shoes or the porta-potty, and let’s face it, you are not about to let your preschooler use your new kicks in an emergency on the side of the road, so you better stick with the porta-potty. Between all the needed diapers, playpen, stroller, snacks, extra clothing, books, toys and beloved stuffed animals/pillows/blankets, there is barely room for your requisite book (as if you’ll have time to read it!!!) and extra large bottle of Tylenol.
The good news is that as you add more children to your crew you begin to realize that you actually CAN DO without the baby bathtub and you begin to get creative with what you’ve got (haven’t you heard that other saying, “don’t throw the baby out with the dishwater?”). Or perhaps you just realize that you don’t actually NEED four different kinds of baby seat to get through the week. (Come on now, you remember that first trip away from home with your tiny firstborn!!)
Then there is the method of travel. If you have elected to travel by automobile, you are fully aware of the bells and whistles (literally) that tend to go along with that means of transportation. The endless loop of Fisher Price Kids Silly Songs CD’s, the frequent and yet ill-timed bathroom stops, and the attempts to distract kids who are unwilling to spend one more minute in their car-seat restraints. Not to mention those regular times where you are turned around in your seat, rear end dangerously impairing your husband’s view of the road, reaching into the back seat to: 1)break up a fight, 2)rescue Mr. Wiggles who has fallen between the seat and the door, or 3) re-buckle your precocious and button savy 18 month old back into his car-seat. You carefully time the longer stretches of driving to coincide with naps, but alas…your usually great sleeper decides there will be no-napping in the car that day; their resulting grouchiness only adding to the “festive vacation mood” that is threatening to send you into the next Petro-Can restroom for a sanity-saving time out (no matter its hygienic conditions!)
And don’t even get me started on Air Travel! If the thought of keeping a preschooler and a toddler restricted to the tiny confines of an airline seat(and do they keep getting smaller, or is it just me and all the kids in my lap?) conjures up scenes of peaceful relaxation, let me kindly suggest you get your head examined! Granted, there is the complimentary beverage cart that is good for a few minutes of distraction, and believe me, taking a preschooler to the bathroom every 30 minutes in airplane facilities is a real hoot! But imagine my surprise on a recent cross-Pacific flight, when our fail-safe plan of letting our 2 year old watch T.V. to pass the time was imploded by a satellite feed that ended just after clearing Vancouver Island air space. (And yes, we do have a small portable DVD player…that just HAPPENED to quit working the evening before we boarded the flight.)
Soon you find yourself allowing your son to play peek-a-boo with the old ladies seated behind you and pray they don’t tire of his adorable smile TOO quickly. The entire flight you are on pins and needles praying your kids aren’t disturbing the travelers around you who (wisely??) elected to leave their children home with the grandparents on this trip, and desperately hoping that somehow they will magically fall asleep awkwardly across your lap; causing you to let the food cart pass by, get a gluteal cramp from sitting still so long and prolong a trip to the bathroom until your bladder is threatening to explode, all in the name of not disrupting the welcomed slumber. Restful, no?
Which brings us to the dreaded, “sleeping away from home.” Whether in a tent, a hotel room or everything in between, this brings with it its own set of minefields. The efforts of putting children to sleep all in the same area does seem to get easier as they age, but for me the kicker is having them sleep in the same room as me, period. Every breath, roll and bit of sleep talk startles me awake, then I lay there…afraid to engage in my usual tossing and turning and pillow flipping lest I wake anyone up and have to start the process all over again. I remember camping in our tent with our daughter, at the time she was 19 months old. No matter how late it got, we couldn’t make her understand that it was time to go to sleep; us being in the same “room” and all. Her giggling and shrieking at 2AM, “Tickle Daddy! Tickle Daddy!” was almost enough to make us pack up the tent and drive home right then and there.
Does this kind of vacation sound like “respite” to you? Like, “suspended activity?” Can you see any reason why one would pair the word “restful” with it?? And I’ve only just begun! I could go on and on about the vacation activities, family gatherings and time-zone changes that bring their own set of constraints on your efforts to relax.
Indeed, vacations for families with small children are exhausting, exasperating and easier said than done. But you’ve got to admit that the memories made are worth EVERY SINGLE MINUTE. And you’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. In fact, you likely will…next year! The irony is, you’ll probably even look forward to it.
As for “respite,” it’s like my husband always says, “Honey, we can rest when we’re dead.”
Sometimes that seems like an awful long time to wait...just for Webster's version of a vacation.
Comments