Mai Tai Mommy

I will never, ever go on vacation again. Normally, I find myself saying this after carting my three kids under five years old to Boston and back on the red-eye that stops through Denver to switch planes. HELL ON WHEELS – or wings, in this case.

But this time, I will never, ever go on vacation again because I left my household of three kids, one giant yellow lab, one German student, one wide-eyed husband and many unwelcome vermin in the basement – and went ALONE on vacation with another mom.

Yes, ALONE. No children. Solo. Single. Alone.

“What???” you scream at me. “Why, that sounds like BLISS, freedom, peace!!!”

And it was. Four nights and five days of Hilton Waikiki heaven. Palm trees, SPF 45, gorgeous, trashy magazines. What’s Britney up to these days???

And we relaxed – hard. We wiggled our toes. We flipped from front to back. We took 20 minutes to slowly, slowly tiptoe our way into the medicinal Hawaiian waters.

No splashing. No whining. No “Mommmmmmmmmy!”

No responsibility for the frying of small parts of tiny ears, backs, noses and butt cracks. No up at 2 a.m., 4 a.m., 5:30 a.m., ready to play. No peanut butter and jelly encrusted with sand fingerprints on my new, sassy bathing suit.

It was a strong Mai Tai away from a Calgon moment.

“So why won’t you ever, never do it again?” you ask, scratching your Mommy head?

Because – simply – I came home.

I came home a relaxed noodle – a slippery shell of the “chop-chop-chop,” on-time, driven, schedule-schedule-scheduled Mommy of old. I came home a non-supermom. I came home a peaceful, mumbling, relaxed idiot – shocked at the level of chaos that I’d become so used to, and unable to jump right back into the diaper/playdate/mommy-wheres-my-other-sock fire.

So I made a vow to my husband as I wept in the shower after day two of being back. “I will never, ever go on vacation again!” I sobbed.

Well, until next year, at least – Mai Tai’s here I come!!!

By Annie B. Yearout