Vacation

I love my life, but sometimes I miss my old life.  You know, when things were 'easy'.  Raising twins is hard, way harder than I ever thought.  I struggle with the things that I have had to sacrifice.  No, not the lack of daily showers, spit up all over my clothes, the sleepless nights....those I expected.  It's more the things that were not expected, like the loss of my mom.  Because you see, my mom was supposed to be here.  She was supposed to be able to help me.  Don't get me wrong, we have had a lot of help, but it's not the same.  My biggest challenge right now is vacation.  "Vacation? You ask"  Yes, and now you will see some of my 'selfishness' come about.

We love vacation.  A lot.  A cruise, a beach, a mountain, you name it.  We love it.  With T.J. being an airline pilot, it offers us great opportunity to go on vacation.  So, we try to take advantage of it whenever we can.  However, we have not been on a vacation since July 2011....when my mom passed away.  We were on vacation when we found out about my mom, and it's something that I will always associate with 'vacation'.

My mom always took care of everything.  You could count on her for anything.  So, if we went on vacation, no problem, she would watch the cats, she would get the mail, she would water the plants, etc.  It made things so easy.  So it was my expectation that everything would always be so 'easy'.  Like after I had kids and went back to work part-time, my mom could watch them....oh wait, maybe not.  If we went on vacation, she could watch the boys, she could take care of the cats, she could take care of everything...or not.  So, I struggle with how things 'should be' because they're not easy for me anymore, and I hate it.

I want a vacation, but I want it 'my way'.  I want to be able to nap when I want to, lay out and get a tan, drink some strawberry daiquiris, swim with some dolphins if I want.  I don't mind if the boys come with, but I don't want it to be a 'family vacation' where the focus is on the kids.  I want a vacation for me (selfish yes, but they're still so little).  If my mom was still here, I could leave the boys with her.  We just don't have anyone else we can leave the boys with.  So, our choice is always going to be bringing the boys with us.  I just have to decide if we bring someone with us (nanny, etc.) or rely on childcare where ever we are going.  The boys will be 18 months old when we go on vacation and I don't know how they will be if we just 'drop them off' with someone while we go out scuba diving for 4 hours.  I don't want it to be a complete disaster.  They won't quite understand what's happening ('where are we?' 'why is mommy leaving me?', etc).  It's also hard to expect someone to just take a week off of their life to help us out so that we can enjoy our vacation.  I hate the fact that every time I think about vacation, I think about how my mom isn't here.

I want to go on vacation, and it may seem selfish, but I just wish it was easy..... like it used to be.