Same job, different uniform.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Not quite as well known as the Witness Relocation Plan is the Childcare Relocation Initiative

So, all four of us got on a plane to experience the wintery bliss that is Colorado. A lot of thought and planning, particularly by Tall, Dark and Hansom, went into this excursion. He wanted to make sure that both of our expectations were met during this 8 day long adventure. We were going to stay with our friends(let's call them dad, mom and daughter) in their Steamboat Springs condo for the bulk of our stay and still spend a little bit of time with my sister, who lives in Denver.
As we are picking up our luggage at baggage claim, TDH's phone rings and the daughter of our Steamboat Springs condo-owning friends, just came down with the flu. So rather than meet up with them right away, we stayed with my sister in her one bedroom apartment for the next three days. Great to spend time with her, not so great sleeping arrangements and not so great being basically inside of "four small walls" for two days.

We finally meet up with our friends and head to Steamboat in their two separate vehicles. The dad has now developed the flu and so we ride with our two kiddos and their daughter in the car we are driving.

Please close your eyes and picture your parents telling you to tone down the giggling in the back seat. Are you also remembering how their instructions fell on deaf ears? Not so much deaf ears as ears that hear the opposite of what you just said? Needless to say, the portable DVD player was employed as a giggling suppressant for the remainder of the ride. After the first movie had finished, on principle, I wanted to give the girls sometime to entertain themselves in the car. Gosh darn it, that is the way my sister and I had to do it, so they should learn car riding skills, sans electronics, too! Oh, they entertained themselves. Who knew how hilarious saying the same word back and forth to each other with different syllabic empahases could be? I'm a quick study, too. I learned that I cannot maintain my sanity when there are two silly, silly girls in the back seat. Off to Never, Never Land you go, girls.

The rest of the week consisted of TDH and I exchanging child care duties. We both did some skiing and I had a couple of spa treatments. Meanwhile, Jane (our 4 year old girl) had her defiant and attitude dials turned up several notches all week from hanging out with their 6 year old daughter and Sweet and Creamy (nine month old son) was pretty fussy all week dealing with his ear issues and trapped inside of a hotel room issues. Yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that I took S & C into the Dr.'s the day before we left and he had a full blown ear infection in addition to needing ongoing nebulizer steroid treatments for his lungs.

"What a spoiled princess,!" you might say. "She got to spend several days in the beautiful mountains of Colorado in a luxury condo, skied and did some spa-ing! Stop your complaining right this instant." Before you plan a selfish brat intervention for me, let me just say that I'm simply trying to do a cost, benefit analysis. Is all the hassle [for my personality (semi-controlling and structured) it is a hassle] of trying to merge two families' agendas and illnesses in addition to packing and lugging all our crap around and the full time job of caring for young children worth the "vacation?" I think by my very use of quotation marks around the word, vacation, you know my answer.

Fun was had, yes. Did I return rested and refreshed, or at least exhilarated? No. Again, kuddos to TDH for all the effort on his part - there were just two many variables out of his control.

I told him before we left that it is hard enough to take care of these kids at home, let alone in a place that doesn't have the conveniences of afore mentioned location.
Epilogue: S&C is going on his sixth day of having a fever (he started hours after we got home) and his second visit to the doctor since we've gotten back. The laundry from the trip is still not finished. On a positive note we unpacked all of our crap and put the luggage away. See how I'm trying to be upbeat?

Labels: , ,


SHARE THIS: Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati

2 Comments:

Blogger "Molly McGee" said...




Wow, TDH (which I am very uncomfortable calling him by the way, even in acronym form) is sportin' the goatee. I hope he didn't return to work looking like such a hipster. Guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

 
Blogger elphaba said...




Do you even have to wonder??

Thursday, March 13, 2008

 

Post a Comment

<< Home