The Work and Joy of Going Away

Last week we went away to this place for five whole days.

It's a bit of work for us to pick up and go anywhere.  We arrange for animal care, try to get the garden in order, mow the lawn and even clean the house (I can't stand coming home to a dirty house). Then there's the packing and all the food.  We tend to take all our own food when we go on vacation. Usually it's a necessity- there are no restaurants or grocery stores near where we stay and if there are we choose not to spend the money.  I don't like cooking on vacation, so I pre-make everything- stockpiling casseroles in the freezer so the meals are easy to just pop in the oven when we get there.

All this to say, it's quite a lot of preparation.  Then, I get there and unpack and don't know quite what to do with myself.  It's a good but unsettling feeling.  At home there is always something I either should be doing or could be doing work-wise.  There's laundry, cleaning, weeding, meal planning, bill-paying, blogging, etc.  On vacation...those things don't exist.

By day two, I've found my groove. I relax and respond to my children in the way I wish I would/could at home because I'm totally available.  I read books (more on what I read soon), do puzzles (my brain gets squishy at home), sit outside in the sun, watch my kids (and husband) play in the creek and stare into the campfire.  We take hikes, go for picnic lunches and play Dutch Blitz until late in the night.  Then, we all climb the stairs and sleep in the same room together.

That same room thing can be a little tricky. When our kids were little I was always paranoid that the older ones would wake up the younger.  Now that they're all older (5, 8 and 11) falling asleep all together is possible after everyone settles down and stops talking and/or fussing.  The first night we ended up scolding and yelling a bit to get them finally settled.  The second night I decided to try to sing them a lullaby instead. My mother sang it to me as a baby and I sang it to my babies, too.

Hush-a-bye and goodnight,
Go to sleep, sweet __________.
Hush-a-bye and goodnight,
Go to sleep for me.
Hush-a-bye and goodnight,
Go to sleep, sweet __________.
Hush-a-bye and goodnight,
Go to sleep for me.

You get the idea- simple, a tad boring- the perfect lullaby.  So I sang it to each child and then I sang it to Jamey, too (so he wouldn't feel left out).  Then to my surprise, Jamey started singing and my three kids' little voices joined his in the dark to sing the lullaby to me.

And of course, I cried.

We sang to each other each night after and each night everyone quieted down.  We've started a new vacation tradition quite by accident.

One more thought about vacations.  If you go away to a place like a cabin where you have to rough it, it makes you appreciate coming home to all the comforts (like electricity and running hot water).  It makes home look even nicer than usual.  It helps breed contentment and appreciation for what you have instead of feeding desires for more this or nicer that.

It's so good to get away and it's so very good to be home.