Domestic Oblivion

Worst. Vacation. Ever.

So, I have this thing.  You may have heard me talk about it before.  It’s this little thing, called my family.  It includes a bunch of weird pets and 5 people other than myself.  The family sort of prohibits certain things in my life, like opulent travel to exotic locales.  And vacations with my husband.

Long ago Davie-O and I just sort of gave up ever going anywhere together.  At one point we had 4 kids under the age of 5, and just in case you’ve never been in a room with that, it’s not easy and can be extremely unpleasant.  So, we started taking separate vacations.  Davie-O would get on his motorcycle and drive to Canada.  I would find a concert somewhere other than the state I live in, and that was good enough.

And now the kids are a bit older, and ever slightly more independent.  We came up with this crazy notion that maybe, just maybe,  we could vacation  together.  I decided to tag along to a conference in Chicago.  I actually helped write the paper for the conference, and was billed as a co-presenter.  We booked a great hotel, Davie-O was looking forward to attending the conference, and I had a list of cool things I wanted to do, see and eat.

Last Sunday I got up and packed 4 kids for a week at grandma’s, I packed Davie-O (because he’s 39 and can’t put stuff into a suitcase so it comes out looking like it’s been laundered in the last decade) and I packed myself.  I then packed all that stuff into the car.  And then I drove, all 11 hours, to Seattle.  Davie-O was in the car, but he worked the entire way.  We arrived at the grandparent’s house at 8pm.

We got up and left for the airport at 4:15am on Monday.  We made it through security by 5am.  I started throwing up in the airport at about 5:20am.  Did that twice, just for good measure.  Then I boarded 2 different airplanes, where I proceeded to vomit 6 more times.  And due to the turbulence, I got to vomit in my seat.

To his credit, Davie-O was awesome.  He took care of my luggage, he loaded me into a taxi, and he got me to the hotel as quickly as possible.  He even upgraded to a room with a view when we checked in, since he wanted me to have something to look at while I was lying in bed.

Never, ever in my entire life have I been so glad to be inside of a hotel room as I was that afternoon.

And then I spent my ENTIRE vacation there, in that hotel room.

Just me, the lovely white sheets, and the nice clean bathroom.  Oh, and ice from the hotel ice machine.

On Friday, just in time for the big flight home, I started feeling better.  Davie-O complains of headache.

About an hour before we started driving home on Saturday, Davie-O started throwing up.  That trip was super fun for him, and entertaining for everyone else in the car as well.  Nothing says “we’re a family” like teasing the person who is stuck vomiting in the car.  It’s all about the love….

Sunday, 8PM, found Cutter sitting on the commode, losing bodily fluids from both ends.  Poor kid.

Monday, 1AM, found Bowman in same situation as Cutter.  Both boys missed the first day of school.

Tuesday, 6 AM, Mason wakes up complaining of a headache, but he looks pretty good.  This goes south quickly, as I watching him turn green about half way through his bowl of yogurt and bananas.  I’m so nice I gave him a breakfast that I thought wouldn’t be horrible to barf up.  And right I was about that, starting at about 11AM.

Isabelle announced that her head hurt when she went to bed on Tuesday.  I put her in bed, lined the floor between the bed and bathroom with blankets, and gave her a bucket.  Davie-O pulled night duty with her when she started throwing up at midnight.

And there you have it:  a crappy ass vacation, and all 4 kids absent at least once by the 3rd day of school.

I’m choosing to believe this is not an omen.

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