Vacation: noun, a scheduled period during which activity is suspended. That’s the definition from Webster’s dictionary. Vacation with kids: noun, a scheduled period of time where you will get no rest and if you think you were going to, you were an idiot. That’s my definition from the dictionary of Kristina. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I just returned from a vacation with my children. I don’t know if it was the warmer air or what, but at times, they seemed like someone switched out my kids and gave me some creatures from the planet Cling-On and Whine All the Time.

Before you think I had some horrible vacation, I honestly didn’t. It was a good time. But, let’s just say there were some trying times that I really wasn’t expecting. For the most part my girls are pretty good at home, even my little rowdy one is usually okay, although some would tend to disagree. But, during our week at the beach, they did things they usually don’t, which got really annoying.

For one, the defiance of the nap proved to be public enemy number one. My older daughter refused to nap after a busy morning at the beach. Therefore, by the time dinner rolled around, her whine-atude was amped up and she wanted to be attached at my hip, my leg, my arm…you get the picture. Just take a damn nap! That’s all she had to do. But no, she had to prove she was some type of non-sleeping superhero. Epic fail.

As for the little babe, she napped, but was still a terror. At times, she was even worse after a nap. I just don’t get it. She would wake up with such a bad attitude that I wanted to ship her back home. Her fearlessness also made me wish I had eyes behind my head. She became an expert in diving off furniture and even thought she could walk on water. She scared the bejesus out of me when she tried to walk to her father who was in the pool. Luckily he was right there to catch her.

Don’t even get me started on the ride home. My older daughter actually slept for most of the ride. She must have been tired from all those naps she didn’t take. But,my younger one needed a straight jacket and a bottle of Benadryl. She wanted no part of her car seat nor the wide variety of DVDs I brought along. Neither Dora, Caillou, nor Barney helped. So needless to say, it was the ride from hell.

After telling some of my vacation stories, someone told me I need to bring a “children’s helper” along next time. Yeah okay, are you going to pay for that? I didn’t think so. Someone else also told me it gets better. So I’m going to believe that for now. One thing I did learn was that there is never a vacation from motherhood. There’s always poop that will need to be cleaned, mouths that will need to be fed, boo boos that will need to be kissed, and fights that will need to be broken up. On the flip side, there will also always be bottles of wine to drink to help deal with all that! So, we’ll see what happens next year. Stay tuned!