Florida vacation

The flurry before a vacation is always one that makes the vacation doubly necessary....for example, straightening out the order of 600 mannequins that was placed using our credit card.... But I can't complain too much because this vacation, DH and I are going without the kids! Which is both stressful and a relief.... I'm not gonna lie....it's mostly a relief. It's been a loooong month with all the sickness and some fresh sea air will be just the remedy to start me over from scratch. ..... All this packing and travel preparation always causes me to gird up my loins in anticipation for a Planes, Trains, and Automobiles situation. AND it also reminds me of the last vacation we went on (with kids) to Florida a few years ago.

I was pregnant with The Bear and we were determined to make it a fun one for Noah (who was a last minute addition to the itinerary). Inexperience made us bright eyed and with the hopes akin to that of a young bride on her wedding day. Needless to say, aside from weeping myself to sleep every night in our tiny hotel room with a dozen krispy kreme donuts to comfort myself.... and then the loud weeping - ok BAWLING - waking up Noah every night, I have blocked most of that time from memory. Our hopes of a fun filled relaxing vacation were basically decimated into a million pieces, with every dream and expectatioin tied to a stake and covered with karosine and set abalze. One at a time. We'll eat out! no dishes! Cue A vague memory of our lactose intolerant son encountering an ice cream cone and then having to disinfect a Destin McDonalds does come to mind...dishes were starting to look pretty attractive at this point. Or that memory of Noah sleeping a total of 45 min on a 13 hour drive..... (it'll be fine! He'll sleep most of the way!). Then fearing a McDonald's repeat- "We'll keep him snacking so we don't have to stop!" Cue crying from the back, while clutching the tell tale snack box that went something like this:

Mom: Noah, did you shove a raisin up your nose?!?!
N ( sobbing, sniffling) : No-ho-ho-ho-ho.......hooooooo
Mom: (to Dad) Pull over!!! (To Noah) We won't be mad.... We just need to know!

My frantic tone wasn't convincing enough for our then two-year old. Little did he know how much emotion was dammed up behind all of that medicinal calmness.

After searching in the bowels of his nostrils for a significant delay, he managed to convince us he was innocent of inappropriate raisin ingestion and ended up crying himself to sleep a short time later. We figured it was shock and exhaustion.

We figured wrong.

After his 45 minute nap (his ONLY nap this roadtrip, as you'll recall) , he woke choking, and to our surprise, dribbling out of his nose in a pool of snot was that elusive raisin. needless no say, after this road trip, Tyler and I are flying to the Florida Port, without kids, and without raisins!