Focusing on the Fun of Vacation

Declan situated himself in the shallow water moving with the flow of the ocean and each breaking wave.

“So,” my husband said as he walked from the waters edge to me, a few feet behind, “The good news is that no one is staring at us anymore.  I walked onto the beach to see you trying to get Declan to come into the shallow water and he was yelling, “I hate you!” and “I’m not going to listen to you!” at the top of his lungs – but no one else looked at him.  I was kind of surprised.”

I looked around to see the people on the beach.  We had seen most of them most of the week.

“Huh,” I replied, “I guess they’re used to us.  We are “that family” to them now.  Well, works for me.”

Last week we took our yearly summer vacation to the beach – one of Declan’s favorite places travel to as he loves the water.

In order to help Declan enjoy his vacation and not worry about too many changes, we did the same vacation from last year.  We stayed at the same hotel for one night, got the same beach house, played on the same beach.  In short, Declan knew what to expect.

Yet, try as we might to prevent the hard times, there were hard times.

Waiting to get into the beach house, wanting to play his way, not wanting to transition from the house to get ice cream, not wanting to transition from the boardwalk when the ice cream was done.  We eventually instituted a similar reward chart from school to help Declan stay calm as there was screaming, hitting, scratching and running away.

Seeing Declan become aggressive and hurt his family I am sure was hard for other parents to witness or understand.  Yet I can’t move an unwilling and aggressive 85 pound child.  We all just did our best and kept him safe.

The big kids had their share of rows, the stress of traveling and the bickering amongst us all in the moment – well – for a while, it felt like our family was the entertainment for others to watch.

I had my blinders on.  Eventually, my husband saw that outsiders stopped looking.

And even though we had our downs, we had a lot of ups.  And made some great memories.

The kids spent lots of time in the sand

And playing on the beach

The big kids went parasailing and had a blast

Even when the guy driving the boat teased them

Quiet sunsets in the shallow water

And Catelyn spent a lot of time collecting jars of interesting sea shells.

Before vacation we spent a lot of time speculating where our hiccups would be to try and help stop them from happening.  Try as we might we missed some and faced a breaking point everyday.

As difficult as those breaking points were, they were okay.  In the big picture Declan got to take a break.  He got to have vacation fun.  I see how much fun he had in the pictures.  Those moments were real.

The good times outweigh the bad, which makes it easier to forget all the hard moments (for this vacations sake, at least – definitely a lot of learning on my part for planning next years special time away).

There was a lot of fun last week.  And that is where I am going to put my attention.