A couple of weeks ago we took a mini family vacation to Great Wolf Lodge. If you haven't been to Great Wolf Lodge, here's a brief summary. It's a family resort that includes an indoor water park, outdoor water park, arcade, kid spa, adult spa, adventure quests, crafts and activities, restaurants, and a lot of other expensive merchandising opportunities. It's a fun place for a short family getaway.
Now we have traveled with the kids before. However, we have usually traveled to visit friends or family. We haven't taken a real vacation since our son was a baby (and you can hardly call a trip with a 7 month old a vacation). For some families, taking a 5 year old and 2 year old to Great Wolf Lodge probably doesn't seem like an accomplishment, but for our family, it was a major accomplishment.
First, vacations have historically been hard for our daughter, because they over-stimulate her. She had a hard time transitioning from one activity to another. That means that every time we left one activity to go to another, we faced a potential meltdown (which she might not recover from). She was so in love with what we were doing, she didn't want it to end. And she had such anxiety about doing something new that she didn't want to go to the new thing. I used to marvel at our friends taking their 4 year olds to Disney World. I couldn't imagine anything worse than taking our 4 year old to Disney World. But let me say, at 5.5, I think we have finally crossed into "highly sensitive child" sanity! Our daughter did great. She was flexible. She compromised. She ate new foods. She had a blast. And there were no meltdowns. Hallelujah!
Secondly, we have a 2 year old boy. That might say it all. But I will elaborate. If there were a scale of 1-10 for childhood exploration (1 being the least and 10 being the most), our son would be a 12. Once he learned to walk, we could no longer leave anything on a surface he could reach. He would find it in .5 seconds and proceed to eat it, throw it, knock it over, or move it to an unknown location. Every room was gated and locked so that I only had to supervise a limited area in the house. I literally haven't taken my eyes off him in a year and a half, because I know he's always 5 seconds away from death or bodily harm. As you can imagine, he's also not fond of the stroller either, because well, that's very limiting for his exploration needs. So therefore, taking him somewhere where he could walk freely in a crowd - holy cow - not going to happen. To go to GWL and be able to somewhat manage him without strollers, leashes, or obsessive supervision was amazing! Now he wasn't perfect. We lost him at least 3 times I can think of, but happily, we recovered him within 60 seconds each time.
The next challenge has been logistics. I'm not the type of person who says, "Let's just go! I don't care if we have to bring everything but the kitchen sink. It's not going to keep me from traveling." No sirree. I hate the logistical nightmare of towing a trailer of baby gear and then, no one getting sleep once you get there because of less than optimal sleeping arrangements. On this trip, for the first time, our children both slept in normal beds in the same room together! They took naps...at the same time...in the same room. They went to bed at the same time. Amazing. And both kids can sit in regular chairs. Both kids can drink out of normal cups. Both kids can eat regular food. Really the only baby thing we had to bring were diapers. WOW!
Next on the amazing list - water safety. For the first time, I could be alone with both of our kids in a pool (a large pool) and not be totally stressed out. Our daughter is a confident swimmer now. Not only do I trust her, she trusts herself, so she doesn't need my help and guidance constantly in the water. I can also focus my attention on the 2 year old for the most part without constant fear that someone is drowning. And my 2 year old wasn't too bad either. As long as he had his puddle jumper on, I was actually more concerned about him wandering off than drowning.
Last but certainly not least, our daughter is now tall enough and brave enough to do things that mom and dad think are fun - water slides! We have been in supervision and kid activity mode for so long, I had really almost forgotten how great it would be to get to do things I enjoy with my kids. I'm happy to report, this little trip gave us a taste of that. We certainly aren't completely there yet. But I see the light. We are on the upswing as far as the manual labor stage of parenting goes. We are headed toward the light of childhood fun (before we hit the teenage angst). And I'm so looking forward to it!
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