Almost time to take that Holiday Road

"I think you're all f'd in the head. We're ten hours from the f'ing fun park and you want to bail out. Well I'll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm gonna have fun and you're gonna have fun. We're all gonna have so much f'ing fun we'll need plastic surgeory to remove our gd smiles. You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of you're assholes! I gotta be crazy! I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! Holy Shit!" Clark W. Griswold, Vacation.
In just a few long days the fam and I will be loading up the wagon(van)and heading out, not on a vacation as Clark so eloquently put it but on a quest for fun. We've got reservations made and we're ready to swim, slide, shop and ride. All we really have to worry about for those four days and three nights is not killing each other, other wise will be worry free. Nothing is as great as making memories with your family and lets face it nothing can drive you as Griswoldingly batshit as the same exact thing. I think all us dads have a little Clark W. in us that builds up expectations of what our vacations should be, ideals drawn up from to many travel brochures and board game commercials. I mean look at the back of a board game there's usually a picture of a family gathered around a game board laughing and having fun. Have any of you ever done that? I've played games with friends and loved it, Rainey and I use to love to play games and you can even play a game with one kid and have fun. But a whole family enjoying a board game? Those pictures on the back are taken right when the game starts and everyone is thinking- yeah I'm going to win this, if it were taken a few minutes later barbs would be flying and tears a streaming. And the travel commercials where everyone is still and quiet and the dad says- I can go 300 more miles. Give me a break. That's why we have so many melt downs and disappointments because we fantasize and plan our family fun in advance and then it never goes that way. Why? Because children aren't personality free little beings doing whatever you think is fun. They have strong, infuriating, wonderful personality's and they don't always mesh. On top of that they're siblings, and siblings are life's way of teaching us how to argue. I remember once my sister and I were playing Monopoly (this was before Nintendo) and after we had played for awhile she decided she was done, and who can blame her the game goes on forever. Well, I for one blamed her. I remember I got all perturbed and slung the game across the room yelling at her for, I don't know, ruining the game or something. My children are the same they can play for a little while and then it breaks down into a royal rumble. There are many vacations I can remember when everything just went to hell in a hand basket but even in those times there were still some great moments. For example one year we didn't get the room we thought we were going to get and we all ended up crammed into one room and it was terribly hot and some one stole one of our beach towels and we had an overall horrible time but that was also the year Maddie and I went to the waterpark together and we had an incredible time, made some memories I hope will both always keep.
So if driving 5 plus hours packed in a van like sardines to try and eek out a little fun sounds like something only insane people would do, well your wrong. Yes we are insane but we've learned some things over the years. Little tips that help us to have a good time, every year we try to go over our list and add to it if we can. It's work for several years now and here's hoping it works some more. So while not set in stone or even all encompassing here are the tips.

Tips for having a fun family vacation
1. Have more than one room. You've got to be able to spread out and have a little alone time.

2. Don't insist everyone do everything. You can't go off and leave a 4 year old in the room by himself but he doesn't have to play putt-putt.

3. Divide and conquer. This goes along with number 2, I'll take the ones that want to do this, you take the ones that want to do that.

4. You don't have to be busy the whole time. Yes I know they can watch Spongebob and play video games at home but it's okay to do it on vacation too.

5. Don't try to play board games with everyone. See the above paragraphs for more info.

6. You don't have to be in a hurry to get there. If you need to stop every hour and let someone pee, or get a drink it's okay, it's not a race.

7. Don't plan to much ahead of time. Take a more organic approach to building the fun things you do.

and last but certainly not least

8. Don't get upset when things don't go according to plan. Someone is, not may but is, going to get sleepy and cranky and it might even be someone besides me.


So there you have it folks my 8 simple rules for not having a Clark W. Griswold melt down in the middle of vacation, the answer isn't to leave the kids at home, you can't build fond memories with them that way. The answer is to not put expectations on the trip. So while I hope we get lucky and have a really good time, I'm not expecting anything, just going to sort of go with the flow. Kinda like the lazy river.

"Poor little guy. Probably kept up with you for a mile or so.
[tearing up]
Tough little mutt... "

www Wednesday

I've been doing this for several weeks now and eventually I will learn how to spell Wednesday, such a weird word. What did I read last? Once on a Moonless Night by Dai Sijie, who has become one of my favorite authors, it's a good story. It's told in memoir form in which our unnamed narrator tells the story of how as an French student in China she falls in love with a man named Tumchooq who bears the name of a forgotten country and language. This man's father and then himself and then finally our narrator spend their lives looking for half a lost Buddhist sutra written in Tumchooq. The story gives us not only our protagonists story but also the story of the missing sutra. My only complaint with the story is that it's at times pretty slow, but it's worth the reading.
What am I reading now? Loving Che by Ana Menendez, bet you can guess what it's about. It starts off as a story of a woman raised by her grandfather in Miami looking for the mother she never new and then becomes the story of the mother living in revolutionary Cuba, meeting Che and... well that's about as far as I've gotten so far. I like the way the story is being told in snippets of the mothers memories as she tries to relate to her daughter the story of her life.
What am I going to read next? Probably Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, I had planned to read it after the Dai Sijie book but my daughter has stolen it and hasn't finished it yet.

Kids!

There's a joke I heard once that I've always liked and often repeated the comedian says 'My wife and I have been fighting over having kids. I don't want any but she says we can't give them away'. Ba da bing. This morning I've been baby sitting, although according to Rainey I'm not 'sitting' because there mine, and it's been a little crazy. Well mostly it's been the wee one that's causing all the trouble. I phoned Rainey and asked her why she didn't take that one with her, she said that's why she needed a break. She also told me she might just stay gone until tomorrow, she was kidding. I told her that was fine she could pick the kids up at the fire department tomorrow, I was kidding, I guess. Then she informed me that the fire department only takes kids up to like 90 days old and I just thought that was terribly unfair. I mean up till 90 days old they still have that new baby smell to them and everything, just lying there being all cute and everything. It's when they get mobile that you want to drop em off somewhere. That brings me to another old joke- you spend the first few years of a kids life teaching them to walk and talk and the rest of their life telling them to shut-up and sit down. Sometimes when Rain gets aggravated with the kids she'll hold them up to the wall and ask me to put a hook up there for to hang them on. That would be alright, hang a kid up until your ready for them and then take them down to play. They could even take your coat and hat like the hands on the wall in Willy Wonka. Of course, please note, this is all in jest after a day that started with me being beaned in the head with a sippy cup and then spending the next several hours, with a headache, picking up all the stuff a one year old can drag out. What can a one year old drag out? Anything it can get it's grubby little paws on, that's what. Sometimes when my humor is not as well adjusted as it is this morning I think life would be much simpler without kids are with just one or two. But I can't imagine life, nor would I ever wish for a life, without all of my children in it. As nerve racking as they can be, they also can bring lots of laughter and joy. I can't look into one of their smiling faces and not feel incredibly happy to be a part of their lives, even if I do sometimes threaten to send them to military school or a nunnery. Or maybe a cannery? They could earn some wages, start paying their way around here. Is child labor still illegal?

Tails from the diaper pail

If you don't have children this post may keep you from ever venturing into parenthood, if you do then I'm sure you can feel my, not pain really but squeamishness.
Two true stories of diaper/pull-up's gone horribly wrong. Yesterday our one year old, who is truly a menace to a moments peace, came bearing a gift of a slightly wet and soiled diaper. Now ever since the boy learned to walk he has been into everything, let me rephrase that, EVERYTHING. So when he brought to us a dirty diaper we figured he had got into the thrash can, again. Can you see where this is going? So latter that day as I was driving to work I get a call from my lovely wife, she said she new I'd get a kick out of it and she was right, giving me the 411 on what the little munchkin had done. She said they were out in the den when he starts peeing all over the place, soaking his clothes, the floor, everything. She thinks his diaper must have malfunctioned or been overloaded, so she plops him up on the changing table, unsnaps his onesie, yes the little Houdini was wearing a onesie, and low and behold, much to her surprise the baby is diaper-less. He'd been commando the whole time, just free balling around the house.
The second story, this one involving a pull-up, isn't as funny and is quite stomach turning, at least to me since I was involved in it. My three year old is for the most part potty trained, he still has accidents at night on a fairly regular basis and so wears night time pull ups to bed. A couple of nights ago he wakes up crying and I look and see that he's drenched, his pj pants are soaked. So I tell him to come here and he kinda half awake stumbles over to where we keep the pull ups, I pull his soaked shorts and pull up down to put the dry one on and out plops a baseball size ball of poop onto the floor. EEWWWW! I was flabbergasted, I said 'Son how do you poop in your sleep? And why, oh God, is it round?'. So I wipe him, put the new pull up on him and send him to lie back down. Then I have to get a wipe and pick up the poop ball and clean the floor around said gag inducing projectile. After that my stomach hurt. I had a hard time falling back asleep, afraid I might accidentally poop my pants.
Such are the joys of parenthood.

www Wednesday

Okay I know it's Thursday but I was really busy yesterday. What have I read recently- Ride the River by Louis L'Amour, it was a good short read. Escapism fantasy set in the post revolutionary U.S. about Echo Sackett the youngest descendant of Kin Sackett and her adventure travailing to and from Philadelphia and her home in the Tennessee woods. Then Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel (author of Life of Pi), it was a really good read. There were a twist or two and something near the end quite unexpected. It's a story about the holocaust, about the power of fiction, about taxidermy and a play about a donkey and a howler monkey on a striped shirt. At the end of the book there's a section called Games for Gustav that's pretty heart rending but in being so reflects the horror of the holocaust. This is the third book I've read by Martel and I've thoroughly enjoyed each of them. Also a few weeks back Librarian Who had a blog about her favorite book as a child and that got me to talking about my favorite when I was a kid and that led my lovely wife to find and order it for me online - The Little Mailman of Bayberry Lane by Ian Munn. It's a little book about a mailman that feels sorry for Ms. Pig because she doesn't have any friends and so he invites everyone to a surprise party at her house and then they all become besties.
What am I reading now? Once upon a Moonless Night by Dai Sijie. Sijie wrote Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress and Mr. Mau's Travailing Couch both of which were great and so I'm hoping this one will be too.
What's next? To soon to tell really, I just started Once Upon a Moonless Night last night. But more than likely Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

before I get to deep and perso... oops, too late

It's 3:30 in the morning as I type and I'm not in the least bit sleepy. I've watched two movies, both of them alright, not great but alright and I know I need to go to bed because I don't wont to be all tired and ill tomorrow, because I've promised myself not to ruin every ones weekend. I've been on somewhat of an emotional roller coaster the last, well I was going to say weeks but I think really it's been a lot longer than that, it's just been more pronounced in the last few weeks. My new job comes with some stress, I mean it's not like I'm running the company or anything but it's more stress than I'm use to dealing with. At work anyway, at home with five children stress can be a way of life. One day last week when I was feeling down (I don't know if maybe I'm somewhat manic/depressive or maybe slightly bipolar, can you be slightly bipolar? Or is that like being kinda pregnant? How many sentences can you put in a parentheses? Personally I think maybe it's a dietary imbalance and lack of exercise, I've got to get back on the treadmill.) I thought maybe I'd missed my calling in life and what I was suppose to be was a loner/stoner. This coming from a man who not only didn't inhale but never even came close to trying drugs. When I was young I was to much of a straight arrow and now I've got a job with random drug testing and people depending on me, not only for food and shelter but also to be a ,gasp, role model. There just seem to be days when I feel really down and then I start contemplating the seeming meaninglessness of life, the constant cycle of work, home, work, home, stress, stress, stress and why? So we can grow old and feeble? I see really old people that can barley walk, some with bent over backs, many half blind and deaf and I get scared. Because all of them were at one time young handsome or beautiful people with kids and careers and a future and now so many are just barley getting buy and I think that will be me. And it scares the shit out of me. I think I'd rather die than become feeble and then I think of death and then I think why do we put up with so much crap in our lives, why aren't we all hedonists or something? Well I think were not hedonists because even though life seems short at times 80 or so years is actually a long time and we don't want to live for the moment now and regret it for the rest of our lives, we don't want to do something to mess up our lives or get something that keeps flaring up for the next 60 years. I suppose these are the thoughts and fears of middle aged men, I blame my job (although to be honest I've felt this way while still on the old job sometimes to), I sometimes blame the kids and life in generally but I think what it really is is that I've come to the point where I'm no longer young and I feel and when I look in the mirror see old age creeping up on me. This is, I believe one of the main reasons people invent religions, to make life worth living by having a goal to work toward. Life isn't pointless if your storing up treasure in heaven are working toward salvation or trying for a higher rung on the karma ladder. Yes my belief is that religions are for a)explaining the unexplainable, b)helping us confront death, c)helping us confront life and d)for laws and social order. I would not hazard to write this blog if I weren't currently feeling better to do so while I was in a down mode would end in catastrophe, it would be such a negative downer that any one reading it would need a prescription for happy pills. As it is I've 'gotten over myself', that's my way of putting it. Whenever I go into one of these dives I know that all I have to do is forget myself, let go of the negativity, embrace life and laughter and family and friends and I can get over it. It generally takes a few days to come back 'up' and it probably takes a few days to get 'down' as well but I don't generally notice it until I'm already feeling on skid row. One of the reasons I tried to follow the Hallelujah Acres diet for a while was that one of it's many health claims was that it could even out mood swings and some, I'm not sure how to word this- mental problems, that's not there wording but you get the idea. And you know when I first started on it I did feel really good for a while but then I had a hard time staying on the diet and eventually gave it up all together. But after the last couple of weeks I think maybe it might be worth another try. The worst of it is the major sufferer in this isn't even me but Rainey, she sees it more than anyone else. She has to put up with me getting sulky and withdrawn and very irritable, there's been days when I didn't talk at all unless I had to and I don't want to put her through that. She's had enough hard times and heart aches over the years to not have to deal with any more. I'm not sure where I'm going with this blog, I had planned to talk about the movies I just watched- Hot Tub Time Machine and Funny People, and to try and crack a few jokes but it seems I've went off the deep end by mistake. I hope you'll forgive me for not being entertaining or informative this time and I hope each of you (if any one sees this as I don't believe I'll post it to facebook) has a wonderful 4th of July holiday. I'm going to make myself go to sleep now in hopes that I don't ruin the weekend tomorrow.