Vacation

In July we spent a week at the Indiana Dunes with Charlie's whole family. I haven't posted about it because I don't have any pictures of it. I don't have any pictures of it because my camera doesn't whine, or cry, or need to eat, and therefore it was never in my hands. (The pictures below are all from Charlie's phone). I've been patiently waiting (ahem) for some aunts or uncles or grandparents to share some photos (hint hint), but they were probably too busy for their cameras that week too. They were probably too busy chasing my kids, and in that case all I can say is thank you.

It wasn't the easiest vacation my boys have had. Kai had an upset stomach and was cutting a tooth and was uncharacteristically clingy to me all week. And Jett, well, Jett needed most of the week to adjust to our new environment. He had to share the TV for instance, and keep his clothes on in the house, and not throw sand. Rules, rules, rules.

It's an interesting thing, trying to manage your kids' behavior on a family vacation. On a family vacation, you've got two things working against good parenting. One, you have witnesses. When your child is throwing his third tantrum of the day at 7:30 in the morning, and you find yourself bribing him with Oreos to quiet him down, you have witnesses. Not only are they witnesses, but they are people who's opinion matters to you, and don't know what they are thinking when you fix your child a breakfast of Oreos. Now you're stressing over your kid's behavior and your own behavior which in turn guarantees that you kid will start another tantrum, and the cycle continues. Secondly, you have unrealistic expectations. You are on vacation, and you want to relax, and so if you have to tell Jett to stop throwing his cousin's shoe in the house one more time, you are going to lose it. It might take you a couple of days to remember that vacations are different now. You have kids. Aren't they cute. 

I know some people don't have these issues. Some people are nurturing and relaxed and confident naturally. The rest of us are reading their notes and trying to catch up and pleading with our kids to please use their indoor voice because everyone else in the vacation house is still sleeping and you just don't want to be the one to wake everyone up.

Thankfully the Johnsons are fabulous for playing with kids. And no one ever complained to me about waking them up, even though Jett was the first one awake every single morning. One morning Grammy and Papa took the grandkids to the zoo. One afternoon on the beach, Uncle Dave and Megan spent nearly an hour with the kids on a boat trailer, parked in the sand, "driving" to various locations and then jumping up and down at each "arrival". (That would have driven me insane)! No one seemed to mind moving the toddler seat off the toilet. They seemed to think that Jett's streaking was cute.

One day we visited Mount Baldy, which is a big sand dune on Lake Michigan. Jett and I ran down the dune, and as I was running I vaguely wondered how we were going to get back up the dune, but the running down was so fun that I just stopped thinking about it. Silly me. The way we got back up was, I carried Jett on my back while I literally crawled up the side of the mountain. The mountain of sand. It was so steep that I was afraid to stand up for fear that Jett would tumble off my back and snap his neck. Why I didn't make Jett walk himself is a good question. But honestly, the unending amount of sand that we needed to climb was so overwhelming to me, I just assumed it must have looked even more impossible to him. When we got to the top I was completely winded and had to sit down and catch my breath. I think I remember having to stop Jett from running down again.

here we are just starting our climb

here we are at the top

and proof that we survived

One of my favorite parts of our vacation was a nearby ice cream joint called Oink's. If you are ever in the area over summer, you have to try it. Kai was a total riot there. He tasted a little bit of everyone's, and he seemed to like them all equally until he started doing nose dives in to the mint chocolate chip. He couldn't get enough of the mint chocolate chip, and he went after it with serious determination. Unfortunately Megan, the actual owner of the mint chocolate chip ice cream cone, isn't in this picture, but she deserves major snaps for basically giving her ice cream to Kai and accepting his slobber all over her cone.



Of course, we spent as much time as possible at the beach. Kai loved the beach. In particular, he loved to sit in the sand and throw rocks in the water. Jett had some fun at the beach too, but mostly loved running around in the backyard of the house we rented. Watching him run around in the backyard broke my heart just a little bit, of course, since we have no backyard, and no place where he can run around crazy with only minimal supervision. (But at home we see buses and cement trucks and fire engines on a daily basis, and that never gets old either. Am I rationalizing? Ack). Anyway.

This is the only picture I took with my camera. There's nothing like running around with an uncle, in the dark, in your pajamas. It was just Jett, Will, the fireflies, and a whole bunch of Crazy. Can't you just hear Jett's squeals of delight?


Those crazy kids. What a great week.