On the Road to {Vacation} Recovery

I see your summer vacation photos. Your trips to Maui and Cabo San Lucas. Your moonlit walks on the beach and leisurely bike rides through sleepy, romantic towns.

I see these and I raise you the scenery along my 98 degree run the other night:

Yes, a steaming pile of poop that spells “hi”.

It’s kind of the perfect picture of our summer so far.

Not really.

But really, we are still recovering from our vacation from hell.

Last I left it, we were about to board our flight to come home.

Home sweet home.

Home, the place I was afraid we wouldn’t get to when Taylor lit up like a Christmas tree at airport security and had to have his palms swabbed. The palms, you know, that were covered in what appeared to be leprosy.

Please don’t detain us.

(They didn’t.)

Home, where I unpacked a suitcase full of standing water after discovering that the airline had left it sitting on the tarmac in the middle of a Floridian monsoon.

Home, the site of the broken 8 month old that had to be picked up by his butt and left armpit only, making it appear to onlookers as though you’ve never held a baby in your life.

Home. Still better than our beach vacation.

Fast forward 4 weeks….

Taylor is still not 100% back to normal. Turns out Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease is a horribly disgusting virus that sticks around for – oh – 12 years or so. If you’re unfamiliar with this virus, basically your appendages rot off blister by blister and you grow all new ones.

Some people experience the virus in their hands, feet, or mouth. Taylor opted for extra measures of all 3. (Not recommended.)

In a random late night discussion recently, I asked what he thought was the most humiliating form the human body can take.

Personally, I think it is a toss up between retching and shimmying up palm trees. (I saw a 40 year old man with misplaced confidence attempt it once. It was…indescribable.)

Taylor’s answer was immediate: Hand, Foot, and Mouth.

He may be right.

As for the issue of the collarbone, I continue to be amazed at how bodies heal themselves.

This was taken on a Wednesday….

…and he was crawling by Saturday.

I know. Makes you cringe, right?

Our biggest risk at this point is another child re-breaking the bone during the first 6-8 weeks, something I thought would be easily avoidable until the very first time I let him crawl around near his brothers and found the giant toddler SITTING ON HIM 14 SECONDS LATER.

It’s really a wonder he’s even made it this far in life.

Our vacation (or lack thereof) has continued to make us laugh.

I was talking to a friend the other day who said, “I thought you were just doing ‘that Sarah thing’ when you were posting about it. I didn’t know it was actually bad.”

First off, I think I’m offended.

Secondly, it really was that bad. Possibly worse.

Thirdly – and most importantly – it was just a vacation. It’s a luxury to even have the means to experience a bad vacation.

If there’s anything our family is good at, it’s laughing. (And kung-fuing inanimate objects, but that’s neither here nor there.)

In a world filled to the brim with hate and pain and tears, I’ll find every opportunity I can to share a smile, even if it’s at the expense of my husband’s flesh-eating disease.

I hope you find a reason to share a good laugh today. It rights so many wrongs.