Stress in a NEW place! or Vacation With Kids

This summer was intense. Maybe that term is buzzwordy, but it's pretty polite yet strong. I could also say this summer was the 7th circle of hell, but that would be overstating it, and besides, I don't know my hell theology well enough to define the 7th circle literally, if I were pressed. I could answer metaphorically, for example:
You: What is the 7th circle of hell?
Me: Oh, that would be This Summer.

It was intense. Somewhere along the way here I have lost some of my supermom powers. I have grown weak and no longer want to take my children out of the house as a unit, because they are stronger than me now. Not physically- I could still take every one of them down if necessary- but in a metaphorical mom-is-so-tired-of-hearing-you-fight sense. In my defense, one of them is HIGH maintenance. Or four. But especially R2. He takes school breaks VERY personally, and tends to throw fits all summer long as a protest and petition to be put back on the school bus right NOW. And the Man of God was gone all summer doing teen camps, which is a real job with budgets and meetings and stress and details, but also bouncy houses and hot dogs and hijinks. Not that I'm bitter.

All that to say we needed a vacation. Lucky for us, we booked one last February for September. So we hit the road with the Clarklings and did some ministry and then launched into vacation-with-kids mode, which means exactly the same as normal life, except much more expensive and complicated and not in your house. Pretty sure they had the best week of their life, while we carried luggage and power-washed sand off them and broke up fights and dragged their kicking, screaming bodies out of the ocean at the end of the day. The MOG and I gradually developed wisdom about beach umbrellas and spray sunscreen (even though the internet said I would KILL them with spray sunscreen). We never figured out how to not get sand every dadgum where.



Now, lemme splain about Gulf Coast beaches. If you aren't from here, you don't want to come here, unless maybe you're from the Midwest and you've never been to a normal beach. We welcome you, Nebraskans. But the rest of you, we don't need you standing around looking superior, because this is our beach. Gulf Coast beaches don't have white sand, our sand is tan. Also our sand is not super-powdery, it is more liquid-cement like. It collects on your feet, and up your legs and into all your areas, and it solidifies and it stays with you forever, just like Jesus. It's a free souvenir for you to keep in your car and your hotel room and your shorts forever.

Also we have seaweed, unlimited amounts of seaweed, so quit being a snob about our beach and get jealous.

One of the beach days, we stumbled back to the van with our random sunburned patches aching, screaming kids in tow and the Man said, "I'm just figuring it out- these vacations are for them." Exactly, The kids had a vacation, and they will probably remember it the way I Instagrammed it, the moments of eye contact and hand-holding, the dinners out with us, and our attention, after a summer of surviving. I hope they'll remember it the way I remember my childhood, with the joy and the closeness- an awareness that things are not perfect, but things are good, together.

It was time for the grownup vacation. You're not gonna believe this, but we needed it.

To be continued...