Holiday

The kids and I went to Maine earlier this week to visit my sister. I can’t recall what made me think taking a vacation alone with my kids would be a good idea, in retrospect it seems like insanity but we made it back alive to I guess all’s well that ends well as Shakespeare would say. Indeed, given the date, I should be quoting or misquoting Julius Caesar, so here goes: “Beware the long car-trip with your children.”
It wasn’t that it was awful, the hardest part was that they would not fall asleep at night. I expected the first night they would be too excited to fall asleep quickly but by 10PM their being excited was getting old. Finally I had to turn out all the lights and retreat into the bathroom to wait for them to finally nod off. Do you know what it’s like to sit on the bathroom floor of a hotel room reading the newspaper? It’s like being held hostage by your children. The second night though I thought they’d go right to sleep, having gone to bed late the night before and gotten up early that morning, but still it didn’t happen. At 9:30 my sister and I went out to sit in the hallway so they would sleep and we could still talk but C cried until we came back in and sat in the doorway with the entryway light on. Two grown adults held hostage by children. At least we didn’t both have to wait it out in the bathroom.
Being both the driver and navigator on this trip confirmed my suspicions that I’m capable of getting lost in a paper bag. Twice on the way to Spring Point Ledge Light I had to pull over and consult the giant DeLorme Map book. Twice! It’s a lighthouse for Pete’s sake! How difficult can it be to find a lighthouse? You drive towards the water until you can’t go any further and then look out over the horizon and there it is, big as life. I also missed the entrance to Portland Head Light by one road, I swear the sign said “next left.”
The Inn by the Bay was good enough to provide H with a crib. Having cribs available would lead one to believe that the hotel might also have appropriately-sized blankets as well; but either they don’t or I was suppose to order that separately. Faced with no blanket, the first night I covered him with the bedspread off my double bed. Had he enough energy, he could have taken it, tied one end to the crib, thrown the other out the window, and climbed down all five floors to the street. I didn’t use the bedspread the second night after my sister expressed concern he might suffocate. Instead I covered him with three large bath towels.
In the car, I was held hostage by the Bee Gees. I left their CD in the whole way up and the whole way back, not wanting to draw attention to the CD player by changing CDs or putting on the radio. I was afraid C would demand to know what other CDs I had and then I would be forced to tell the truth – that indeed I had brought the Uncle Wiggly CD. So it was the Bee Gees – eight full hours, minus 45-minutes towards the end of the trip when I turned it off and we sang “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” At one point “Massachusetts” came one, for the 20th time, and C exclaimed, “hey! He’s going back to Massachusetts and we’re going back to Massachusetts!”

song: Holiday * artist: The Bee Gees