Seth and I haven’t taken a proper vacation in 4 years now. Part of that is Covid putting the kibosh on our plans last summer. Part of it is that it can be hard to get travel permission with foster kids.
A lot of folks don’t realize that bio parents still have a lot of rights even when their kids are in foster care. A lot of those rights relate to medical decisions. Some caseworkers are great about getting all the authorizations in place ahead of time. Some are… not as great about it. I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent in medical facilities trying to get permission for a procedure, calling parents numbers and DCFS numbers and parents’ family members, etc. It can be quite an undertaking. All with a squirmy kid who just wants out of the doctor’s office. This is one of the many reasons our county’s medical center is so great – they get an authorization for basic medical care and immunizations when kids come into care and keep it on file so parents don’t have to give permission for every little thing.
But I digress. Similarly, we can’t take a child out of state or even in the state for a vacation without getting permission from the parents or the county. Some parents give that permission very readily, and Kiddo’s parents were among those. So when Kiddo was living with us, when she was four years old, we decided to take her to the ocean for the first time. Because Seth and I are insane, we decided to camp in Virginia on Chincoteague Island so we could visit the pristine beaches on Assateague Island.
The insanity is not so much the destination, it’s the camping piece of things. And it’s not so much the camping, it’s the tent camping. With a four-year-old. At a busy campground. Where people party until late at night so kids can’t fall asleep until very late, and then the kids get awakened by the sun very early because of its becoming too hot in the tent.
Basically, it was a recipe for spending a week with an extremely overtired four-year-old who already had behavioral issues when she wasn’t overtired.
And with mosquitoes. A whole hell of a lot of mosquitoes.
To be clear, I’m no novice when it comes to mosquitoes. I don’t have the same street cred as my dear friends who have spent time canoeing in the Arctic, where the mosquitoes have literally been known to drive humans and caribou insane, but I have experienced the mosquitoes of the Adirondacks and Downeast Maine. I remember my first time camping with Seth in Downeast Maine and hearing the ominous hum emanating out of the woods at dusk. I told him that it was mosquitoes, and he didn’t believe me. I said “See ya” anyway and dove into the tent to finish eating my dinner. Not 10 minutes later, Seth beelined it to the tent doors, swatting, slapping, and swearing as he fumbled with the zippers.
I totally said “I told you so!”
The thing about the mosquitoes in Chincoteague however, is that they didn’t give you a break during the day. They were just as bad at noon as they were at 7 PM. And they have these vicious little teeny weenie mosquitoes that can bite through anything. My god! They were evil and bloodthirsty and THERE WERE SO MANY OF THEM. 🦟
Our only places of relief were the car, and the beach. So to the beach we went.
And what a beach it is! Kiddo loved playing in the waves (when she wasn’t whining or having a meltdown). I loved collecting shells and just soaking in the sunshine and fresh mosquito-free breeze. We spent our mornings at the beach, and afternoons exploring just how close to the beach was close enough to avoid the mosquitoes.
As an aside, the trip was my first real experience with sunscreen and a biracial child. I would plaster Kiddo with 50 spf sunscreen first thing in the morning, and she would be fine for the rest of the day. She got a tiny tiny little bit more color but not much, despite hours in the sun. I, on the other hand, applied sunscreen to myself approximately every two hours and still burned the hell out of myself. Melanin is amazing stuff.
I have fond memories of driving around exploring the wildlife refuge during nap time so Kiddo would blessedly sleep in the car (it being too hot in the tent). We saw the famous wild ponies. Kiddo was not impressed. We made her climb the lighthouse. She was slightly more impressed by that but not much. We found dead fish and little shark skeletons on the beach. Those she liked!
All-in-all I enjoyed the trip, though next time I travel to a tourist destination with a four-year-old we will stay in a hotel room that’s quieter and cool enough for sleep during the day.
Kiddo still talks about the trip to this day which amazes me because she was only 4 and memories made at that age usually fade. It made a huge impression on her. It remains the only real vacation she’s ever been on because people who live on the edge of poverty don’t have spare cash for vacations in exotic places like the ocean, so her mom doesn’t have the luxury of vacations. I’m so glad we do and had the ability to give Kiddo that experience.
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