We are taking a vacation.
We haven’t taken a family vacation since I was newly pregnant with my second child and celebrating the news by puking my guts out, on an airplane, halfway across the country. It wasn’t quite a work-free vacation. We helped my in-laws move. Then, my 1-year-old spiked a crazy high fever from some mutant virus and I got so car sick driving in the Ozark Mountains that I puked in a shoe box – the one that held a new pair of shoes I had just bought on the trip.
That was almost two years ago. And I would still like a do-over.
Granted, we have taken trips since. But it’s just been my girls and me - flying to weddings, driving to see friends in another state, visiting my parents over the holidays.
But our deployment schedules haven’t allowed my husband to join us until now.
I am tickled pink at the thought of having someone else to help me drag car seats, strollers and carry-ons onto the plane. I don’t have to be the only person running my toddler back and forth to the “scary” airplane potty. I can get coffee while he rides the airport escalator with the girls. And I won’t be the only one juggling seat belts and lap children and iPads in airplane mode.
Be still my heart, but I may actually get to take a nap on this vacation.
It is funny how accustomed I am to functioning without my husband. How I know how to travel without him, even learning which items need to go into the carry-on, in the right order, so I’m not fishing for the one item I need with two screaming kids.
So now that he’s here, helping me pack and carry our children through security, I feel quite a load off.
What a treat.
And yet, as I watched my dog do the nervous pace and twitch he saves for every time the luggage comes out of the closet, I realized I’m still anxious, too.
Truthfully, while I may be a seasoned solo traveler, I’m not sure I remember how to travel with a companion over the age of 2.
He asked me after dinner to review what we needed to pack. I brushed him off with a quick, “It’s fine. I’ve got it figured out.”
I hadn’t even considered what he would need. Or what he wanted to make sure we had, in terms of snacks for the girls or movies to watch on the iPad.
I have forgotten what it’s like to have help.
I want it; it makes life so much easier.
But it’s hard to be the one always self-sustaining, only to find you don’t have to anymore, or at least for the moment.
I couldn’t be any happier, but my nerves are still firing as if I’m revving up for a 5 a.m. flight.
Learning to have help may make vacation harder than I ever thought.