Blog

VACATION

It’s been a long, hot summer waiting for vacation.  This year it’s the very last week of August. The plan was made in February, for a covid responsible trip, both families and me. The “when can we have a sleepover again” crowd, all seven grandchildren can’t wait.

Siblings Gavin and Shea have been doing bedroom assignments for months with drawings.  It’s complicated.  Where do they assign the three-year-olds?  There is a room with two sets of bunk beds but who gets the top bunks? There are five ‘big’ kids! The event coordinators don’t understand that their cousins would be happy to squeeze into one twin bed, like a litter of puppies.

I hope to get my own room. We have lots of space but I’m old enough to have convoluted tales of swapping beds and bed partners throughout the night. The basic beach house, like many a brothel, rises and falls on the bedroom arrangements.

THIS STORY IS NOT TAKING THAT KIND OF A TURN. Take a deep breath and give me a round of applause for accomplishing a better hook line than the cliché: it was a dark and stormy night.

On a not so long-ago vacation, I shared a bedroom with four-year-old Laney and two and a half year old Chloe. The first day was sealed with a kiss. Going to bed on first night on a vacation is always a concern for little ones.

“Mommy, mommy, my blanket won’t listen.”  For those of you who never experienced Chloe-ish, I will translate.   Chloe’s special blanket wasn’t laying wrinkle-less and flat over her skinny little body.  Meanwhile, Laney was sitting in the doorway creating a huge roadblock with a pile of books-anything to avoid the inevitable bedtime.

This went on for a while as I sat on the balcony admiring the light of the full moon against the crashing waves. There is something meditative and peaceful about the sitting and listening and watching the waves crash onto the beach.  Once the parents spread the meditative spirit into the back bedroom, it was safe for me to go to bed. 

I peeked into the bedroom expecting to see a Norman Rockwell type image but only Laney was in the queen bed.  Chloe?  No, not in the twin bed that was squeezed into the room and she hadn’t fallen onto the tiny bit of floor at the foot of the bed.  Panic. There was a window right above the bed. Was my Chloe abducted out of her vacation bedroom? I noticed the icy blue of her Elsa nightgown.  Oh yes, it’s all about Frozen marketing with today’s little girls, then and now. 

My skinny little Chloe was sound asleep with her little body wedged between the bed and the wall.  How this was possible or comfortable defied logic. I needed to extract Chloe and not wake Laney.

I crawled onto the bed and Laney wraps her legs around my ankles. This did not exactly add to my leverage on the soft mattress. Chloe was compressed into a little ball, typical Chloe but not something that would aid my excavation efforts.

I needed to locate the head and the tail.  Pulling Chloe out feet first would definitely be a frightful wake up.  I found the middle and start to lift and Chloe begins to unwind, remember skinny is often paired with lanky. I freed the sleeping tot from her tiny cave and like a boa constrictor she wraps herself around me. One more time I untangle her and place her on the bed with her sister. I free my ankles. Mission completed.

During the rest of that vacation everyone slept on the bed. This year there will be plenty of bedrooms and seven kids, most with opinions and plans for bedrooms, bedtimes and everything else.

Game on! There are a few that always see the sunrise. Some envision partying late into the night but others can’t keep their eyes open after 8pm.

Definitely, I need my own bedroom. I wonder where the nearest hotel is?

My next blog is due in the middle of my long awaited vacation. I hope to post on time if I get enough sleep.