Dear Vacation, You’re the Worst.
[alternate title: Our Life, the Sitcom.]
Oh, hey there. Just bloggin away from the comfort of our cozy little beach condo in Florida. It’s the last full day of our first vacation without kids in 7 1/2 years.
You’d think I’d be on the beach instead of blogging, but I have a wicked heat rash and my husband is curled up in a feverish ball on the couch.
True story.
‘Tis only the beginning, my friends. Only. the. beginning.
Here’s how our week has gone:
Saturday: Say goodbye to our boys, whistle the Hunger Games tune and salute my mom who is holding down the fort at home, board a flight, arrive in Florida, take a long walk on the beach, drink some weird cucumbery vacation drink.
Sunday: play a round of golf at the world’s most hilarious golf course. Almost take out a snapping turtle chillin on the fairway. Get woken up at 3am from the upstairs neighbors’ party and, uh, love for each other. (I forget how intimate apartment life is.)
Monday: BEACH DAY! (aka life.) Fishermen on either side of us catch 5 sharks, ranging from 2-4 feet. Fisherman #2 ends up being an ichthyologist with a degree from Stanford University (which makes us feel better about his random knowledge/the way he fondled the shark’s underfins).
Also the man in the condo upstairs, unaware of our proximity, keeps coming out on the balcony to fart.
Tuesday: Taylor has a fever and body aches; sleeps all afternoon (probably flu). Mom calls from an urgent care at home where she is waiting for our 8 month old to be x-rayed following a seemingly small fall. I FaceTime in my consent to treat. Diagnosis: broken clavicle.
Wednesday: Taylor has an increasingly sore throat; sleeps all afternoon (probably strep). Drive to nearby town for cell service, spend 3 hours waiting for pediatric ortho doctor to call back to schedule a consult. Finish a novel on the beach that is “sure to be the most fun you have all summer”. (is not the most fun I’ve had all summer.) Beach fishermen begin catching hammerhead sharks 30 feet away.
Thursday: Taylor breaks out in a painful blistery rash; sleeps all afternoon (definitely Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease…you know, the child’s virus that only affects 1 in 1,923,842,434 adults). Meanwhile, I get a full body heat rash from…my sunscreen? laying out? both?
Friday: House burns down, lose deposit on the condo. Shark bites left foot off.
Just kidding. Friday hasn’t happened yet. I’m hoping it’ll be: fly home, hug boys, figure out how to hold and clothe and transport an infant with a broken collarbone, scratch through Cape San Blas, FL on every map in our home.
I’m beginning to dislike this place and I think the feeling is mutual, as evidenced by our last trip here when my dad hit a deer, Beckett got strep, and Taylor caught a stomach bug (I’m sensing a theme – the theme being that his Texan body shuts down when he ventures into other parts of the continental US).
So. Maybe next time, instead of coming here where we share a tube of anti-itch rash cream and sleep in separate bedrooms for half the trip, we’ll do something more fun. Like get matching appendectomies in a back alley in Mexico or something.
Until then, peace out, vacation. You were the actual worst.
