Can you see what's on my big boy's shirt? Mr. Strong. I'm a lucky, lucky mom.

Regular readers may have noticed I didn’t post last week — that’s because we were in Florida for a bit over a week, visiting my parents, who some years ago joined the throng of Northerners who take off for southern climes in January and don’t come back until April or so, leaving their progeny with the snow and the gloom, as well as with the option to come on down for some sun & fun.

This year, we were there for slightly longer than usual (the school vacation combined with the jacking up of February-break-time airfares make planning a vacay awkward, so it ended up being less expensive to stretch the trip a couple days beyond the week the kids had off from school. Sounds like a good idea? In theory, yes. In practical terms, not so much. I love my parents to pieces, and some niggling family dynamic issues notwithstanding, we get along. My boys adore them, they show us a good time, my husband gets along famously with both my mom and dad. So what’s the problem?

A wee bit too much togetherness, with me, in the center, as the link connecting my kids to my parents, and my husband to my parents. The end result is that the boys had fun, but I felt slightly stressed. Also, truth be told (and I’m all about telling the truth about child-rearing, right?), it was just plain old too much kid-time. Me and my boys, 24/7, is only fleetingly wonderful. Overall, sure, it’s precious. I am keenly aware of the passing of time, of how quickly my babies stopped being babies. Now seven, Daniel, in particular, is breaking my heart on pretty much a daily basis. He’s still so young, but then he is busting his britches for more independence. He’s just so… big. And strong. And his own person.

I want to build times like this vacation into our years, to enjoy this before they scoff at the idea of spending a week with mom and dad, much less Grandma and Grandpa (oh, and did I mention that we also spent time with my in-laws, who also snowbird it for a month or so, conveniently not too far from where my parents winter? Yep. It was a Grandparent-palooza!). But that doesn’t mean that each and every moment of the past eight days was swimming in a sea of mommy love. No, it was not. I found myself wishing for a shorter trip, to get back and get them back to school, to leave my parents to their golf and their friends and the relative peace of their condo without Cars cars and crayons underfoot.

Then a funny thing happened on the plane on the way home yesterday. Not funny-ha-ha, but funny in that niggling way that sticks with you. Seated behind Daniel and me (my husband was sitting across the aisle with James) was a mother with two young children, a boy and a girl, I’d guess about a year or two older than Daniel. The boy, quite suddenly, let out a loud, long yell. It shook me out of my seat. Then he did it again. In the exact moment that his mother reached across her daughter in the middle seat to touch her son’s arm, I registered that she wasn’t about to angrily shush him. I realized that he wasn’t being disruptive on purpose. The child had a problem — Tourette’s maybe? Or autism? The mother did her best to soothe him, but he wouldn’t stop until we were in the air and he could fire up his portable DVD player and watch a movie.

The boy, whose name was Colin, I found out, yelled out in that sharp, startling way a few more times over the course of the flight. Daniel jumped every time, but I quietly explained to my son that this boy had a problem, that he couldn’t help what he was doing. I forget exactly how I explained it, but I said something like, “that boy has something just slightly wrong, maybe with his brain, that makes him unable to control what he’s doing. He can’t help it.” Daniel still winced at the yells, but otherwise wasn’t bothered. I winced, though. The mother was totally calm, even cheerful, which I’m sure must be her way of coping with his issues (and also went a long way toward making those around us understand, without having to say anything, that there was nothing she could do; no one said a word).

In the last 20 minutes of the flight, my boy pulled up the armrest, and put his head down on my lap. Before long, he’d fallen asleep, my big second grader, his large, heavy head with its untamable mop of dark brown hair resting on my leg. I held my book with one hand, and stroked his cheek with the other. Just as when he was a baby and slept on me, he both drooled and sweated, gradually dampening my jeans.

Meanwhile, Colin yelped and shouted.

Like I said, it was a small moment, and the obvious feelings — of gratitude and great love — bubbled up. It’s natural for any mother to feel that “but for the grace of God” sense when she sees another mom with a much, much greater burden. Then the funny thing happened. At one point, I put my book down and put both hands on my kid. I did all my usual mommy things, like cleaning a little stray wax out of his ear (gross? Sorry; it’s a habit I picked up from my mother, who couldn’t let any earwax or navel lint sit for long, either); trying in vain to smooth his hair, still stiff from yesterday’s dose of pool chemicals; shifting the collar of his shirt where it looked like it might be tight against his neck; slipping a hand under his shirt to feel his breathing and his skin over ribs newly exposed by a growth spurt.

I realized in that small, necessary moment that I wasn’t just lucky to have this kid and his little brother, busily coloring across the aisle with his dad. I was lucky to be able to do these tiny bits of mother-care, to literally feel him growing under my hands. I don’t know for sure if that moment was connected to being confronted with a boy like Colin, but I feel somehow that it was.

But whatever prompted it, I’m glad it happened. Though it didn’t stop me from being very, very grateful that they are both safely and happily back in school today, back up north in the tail end of a snowy winter.

I keep trying to think of a clever start to this post, and all I can come up with is this:

Tomorrow, I’m off on a cruise, without my husband or the boys, I will be gone a total of four days, and I don’t feel guilty.

Sailing away, sans kids.

At least, I don’t feel guilty any more.

The trip was organized by a writer’s community I belong to — it was decided that in a down economy, trying to pull together an honest-to-God conference with speakers and editors (you know, the kind of business trip you don’t feel guilty at all about, because it’s bound to boost your bottom line, and it’s tax deductible — it’s work) seemed like too much. So a cruise plan was hatched, and if you’ve checked cruise prices lately, you know that a three-day trip to a sunny locale can be cheaper than taking a family of four to Yankee stadium for a game. Seriously.

When the cruise came up as a possibility, my first reaction was, no way can I go! My husband had just started his new job, the one that rescued us, in the nick of time, from scary scenarios like choosing between cashing out our retirement savings and losing our home. But I did the math, and since as I mentioned the trip is almost insanely inexpensive, and because it is going to involve at least a little conference-y work (and so will be at least in part a tax deduction on my business), and because I’d be paying it in small installments over the several months before the actual cruise, I could actually swing it.

So here I am, less than 24 hours to go until I get on a plane to Miami to meet the ship, and I’m guilt free. (I’m also not packed yet, but that’s another story.)

When I was struggling with guilt over this, it was not because I felt bad leaving my boys with their dad for four days. It was that whole, “does Mama deserve this” thing. And hells yeah, she does. I’ve been running on every available cylinder for … um, let’s see … seven years? Since I became a mom? Even moreso in the last year and a half, when my husband was out of work and my up-today, down-tomorrow freelance business supported us. I freely acknowledge that I’m a mess inside. I need that sun, that lounge chair, that endless ocean view, and the nurturing company of like-minded friends and fellow writers. My batteries are long past needing to be recharged.

And frankly, my children need a break from me. I know, in my mean-mother-heart-of-hearts, that this is good for them. I can envision my super-sensitive Daniel’s giant eyes filling up with tears now and then while I’m gone, wondering when I’m coming home (as easily as I can imagine James shrugging off my absence from his narrow little shoulders). But even a few moments of mommy-missing is going to be good for them. They don’t get nearly enough of it.

I’ve always said I suck at taking care of myself. (I am bad at pampering, I hate massages and dread pedicures and only like the end result of getting my hair colored and cut, not the “oh, just relax” salon vibe before that.)

But my sons actually need me to take care of myself better. And I’m determined to do just that.

So here’s my postcard from almost the edge:

[I plan to be ] having a great time! Wish you were here…

P.S.: With cruise prices this good? Oh, yeah, I’m doing this again. With the whole family. I hear they have unlimited pizza and ice cream!

[photo credit: Everystockphoto.com]

What does this little guy have to do with our family vacation? Read on!

For many Americans, and famously for much of Western Europe, August is vacation season. Everyone who’s anyone decamps for mountains, lakes, beaches, theme parks, the family cabin, the campground… you get the idea. We’re not going anywhere; in fact, we haven’t gone on vacation in any real sense (that is, for more than a few days; to somewhere that doesn’t involve visiting a relative; or to a place that has bought new sheets for the beds in the last four decades–more on that later) for, um, ever? I, personally, haven’t been on vacation For Real since my honeymoon.

I’m not kvetching, really, just stating a fact as a way of introduction to my somewhat accidental vacation stance when it comes to my children.

When I was a kid, we went on usually one vacation per year, nearly always in the summer, and nearly always to the Catskill Mountains, about a four hour drive north of us in New York State. Back then (as now, I guess), the mountains were studded with resorts, from tiny, pokey, inexpensive places with cabins and a bell that called guests to family-style meals, to higher-end places with indoor and outdoor pools, skating rinks, and evening entertainment. Guess which kind we went to? Yep, the first kind. And we LOVED it. From when I was tiny, we went to a place in Round Top, NY, called Riedlbauer’s, which as you can see from the name was (and still is) owned and run by Germans. Why an extended family of Italian-Americans fell in love with this meat-and-potatoes (literally) place, with nonstop German music emanating from hidden speakers and Alpine-village gingerbread trim on the buildings, I’ll never know. I’m going to assume it had to do with the price. Which was cheap. REALLY cheap.

But it was fun — and we didn’t know any better. We didn’t know there were Caribbean resorts, or even nice hotels on beaches in Florida (we did go to Florida when we were a bit older, during February break, but that was only after our grandparents had become snowbirds and had winter dwellings there. Nothing like spending a winter vacation in a retirement village. Whatever: there was a pool!).

But back to Riedlbauer’s. As kids, we’d spend a July or August week there, eating our three square meals (plus dessert!) a day, swimming in the pool, hiking through the woods, splashing in the cool mountain creeks and waterfalls. My kids have now been to Riedlbauer’s a couple of times, for long weekends in October. It’s become something of a tradition, with my parents, my brother and sister in law, and my sister and her three nearly-grown kids. We don’t care for the food, as abundant as it is (they’re nice, warm, welcoming people, the family who runs the place, but they wouldn’t know a salad or a fresh vegetable if it was dumped over their heads, though it’s a great place if you like meat, with side dishes of potates, and perhaps more meat); the rooms have not been redecorated since an “upgrade” sometime in the mid-seventies; the sheets are scratchy; that German music never stops; and the entertainment involves the owner, Henry, on his electric keyboard, accompanied by an accordionist, and every so often some German folk dancing.

But it’s a total blast. We all sit around these 1970s Formica tables in the main room at night, getting pitchers of beer from the bar and doing the Chicken Dance with the kids. Days, we hike the same trails we hiked as kids, to the same sites: Polly’s Rock, with its views over the gentle mountains, and the wide pool with the waterfall you can walk behind. Watching my boys toss flat, smooth rocks into the same pools my father once did is, you know, priceless.

A sight to see, generation after generation.

Daniel and James learning to skip creek-smooth stones.

I don’t have any photos of the food, possibly because goulash doesn’t really photograph that well, but suffice to say we get a lot of laughs out of dinner (and the boys end up making up most meals from the bread and butter, and the peanut butter and snacks I tote from home). But I have to show you the beds, with the acid-yellow spreads:

The furniture and bedding is distinctly 1970 (or even earlier).

One major thing going to Riedlbauer’s has done for my boys — and for me — is to cement the idea that an extended family, ranging in age from 4 to 72, can all have fun doing the same things at the same time. And another thing it’s done just for my children is to give them wildly low expectations of what a family vacation can be.

There are kids in my son’s class who go on an annual cruise, routinely hit Disney World, and have been to the kind of posh all-inclusive island resort I didn’t even know existed until I was fully grown. That’s fine; I’m not dissing those parents. If could have afforded a way cooler vacation, with way better food and sheets with a much higher thread count, I’d have done it, and I will, someday, when our finances allow. I want to treat my kids, give them things I didn’t have, all that stuff that’s natural for parents.

But I’m actually kind of gratified that a pokey spot like Riedlbauer’s makes my kids happy. Crazy happy, in fact. I’m gratified that this is what Daniel asked me a few months ago, when it suddenly occurred to him that other people had other types of vacations:

“Mom? Is there someplace besides Riedlbauer’s?”

See. Low expectations. Next vacation stop: probably my parents’ Florida condo come February. If they see a fancy hotel room before they’re 10, they just may explode with happiness. And that’s just fine with me.