Vacation R Me

Yippee, skippee, it's Vacation Time, that wonderful time of the year when I pack my sunscreen, 3 twelve packs of Heineken (yes, I'm a beer snob, get over it) 1 swimsuit and an entire suitcase of magazines, books and newspapers, and head off in search of sand.

Oh, wait...that's what I used to do, B.C. Before Children. Now it takes me 3 days to pack, make a grocery list, put new batteries in everyone's respective electronic music and game devices, and then I get to drive 9 hours listening to "when will we get there, Mom?". Yeah, that's more like it.

This used to be my B.C. vacation routine: Get up at noon. Drink a beer, Breakfast of Champions. Dump baby oil on my body. Head to the beach. Come in when a) I'm out of beer or b) when it's dark. Shower, stumble to a seafood restaurant, make a pig out of myself eating shrimp and Key Lime Pie, then drink margaritas until I passed out.

Oh, for those glorious days of yore. Now it's Wake-Up Call at 6am (If I'm lucky). Then a combination variety show of cereal eating and sunscreen application to wriggly children and marital units. Packing the Stuff to Take to The Beach requires at least 2 hours, and by the time I'm ready to head out, the kids and marital unit are asleep in front of the TV.

We finally make it to the beach, and everyone whines that they'd rather be in the pool. So we go the pool for exactly 45 minutes, then somebody's hungry, and it's time to go back and repeat the paragraph above, except there's baloney involved instead of cereal.

Don't get me wrong, I love my family. But vacations as a Mom are really only a Change of Scenery, aren't they? There's little relaxation. There's not a lot of reading going on. There might be a beer or two in there if you can work it out in advance and ask your child to swim, say, 500 laps in the pool right before dinner.

So...here I go, off to the beach. A week of...being a Mom, at the beach. Would I trade it for a week by myself at a 4-star resort? I can lie, and say yes, but no, no way. Besides, what would I have to complain about then?

See ya in ten days!