I wrote a couple of posts about our vacation, then just dove into the Sunny situation without explaining how we were home in time for Sunny to arrive on our doorstep. I’m going to try to write about it with restraint and an adult perspective.
Vacation kind of sucked.
Ok it really sucked.
I loved being back in Maine and in some of my favorite places in this world. And there were some good moments, like burying kids in sand at Roque’s Bluff, and the middle of our visit to my favorite place on earth, Quoddy Head. I did my best to focus on the good and wrote cheerful posts about the good bits. But there’s a big “but.”
The kids’ behavior was off the rails.
The car ride there was okish. They were bored for the entire drive and did not sleep like we expected them to, but they didn’t misbehave. They were excited enough when we got there to be ok for the first evening. But starting the following morning things started to erode.
Kiddo was the worst one really because she’s 10 and knows better. She sulked. She threw things. She did everything we asked her not to. She didn’t do the things we asked her to do. She whined and whined and whined.
Sprout threw some colossal temper tantrums, screaming and arching her back and kicking like a 2-year-old. She was ok between tantrums, but the tantrums were epic and over the top and utterly maddening. Sprout is pretty sensitive, and I think she was feeding off Kiddo’s dysregulation, as well as feeling her own sense of disorientation from experiencing new circumstances.
It was so frustrating that, combined with a few other factors (my ulcerative colitis flare, forgetting the screen house while living in mosquito heaven, and rain), we just started packing up spontaneously one evening and left at first light the next morning.
Kiddo, in a stroke of rare insight, quietly told me that last evening as Seth was packing, “maybe going places is a Seth and Holly thing, and not a me thing.”
I think she’s right. After a lifetime of instability except for our house, and trauma associated with moves and new surroundings, vacation was too much for her. Too much new with not enough distraction and fun stimulation to keep her going. She did great when I took her overnight to Legoland last year, but that was only one night. I asked her why she was ok with it and she said “It was so much fun and I knew I was seeing my Mom the next day so it was ok.”
While vacation itself was a bust, I’m thrilled that Kiddo is reaching a stage where she has some self insight. Beyond thrilled. I’m positively tickled. We have agreed that next time we go camping we’ll go without Kiddo and she’s fine with that. Sprout walked away with an overall positive impression of things – she is asking to go camping again soon. And Sunny is asking to go too. So perhaps next year we can try again.
That said, I’m too damn old and arthritic to be sleeping on the ground. Next time we will have a giant air mattress or a pop up trailer or a cot or something to prevent my kneecaps from feeling like they’re going to blow off when I’m trying to stand up. 😂
My question is this: can we safely take Kiddo on a Disney trip?
We have so many toys that we don’t need a damn thing. The kids can’t even think of things they want because they have so much great stuff. Or else the things they ask for are things I know from experience they won’t play with. I have some airline credits from our failed attempt at a trip to Ireland, and I have a little bit of money coming in November from my work as a Planning Board secretary. So Seth and I thought perhaps we should take a Christmas trip instead of having a traditional Christmas. A stocking each and a big 3-day Christmas Disney/Universal/Animal Kingdom trip.
My initial reaction after vacation was “Oh hell no. I’m not taking Kiddo.” But she was fine with Legoland because bright! Shiny! Rides! Toys! Perhaps a shorter trip with that kind of distraction would work out ok? I need to make up my mind and book soon if we are doing it. I keep going back and forth on it.
Anyway, perhaps things worked out for the best. Sunny was able to come straight to our house rather than some other foster home and I know that significantly reduced the trauma she experienced that awful day when she was removed. She got to snorgle with her sister that night and feel safe. So no regrets, overall.
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