Who’s got parenting truths? I do! Last weekend, Labor Day Weekend, was fast, fun and absolutely fabulous on account of all things you may’ve seen on my social media feeds. I posted this picture on Facebook and got the nicest comments saying “beautiful family” and “great photo” — little did you all know, folks…
LITTLE DID YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED THE DAY BEFORE I SNAGGED ALL OF US TOGETHER AND INSISTED ON THIS MOST “BEAUTIFUL” FAMILY SELFIE IN FRONT OF THE HOTEL AS WE WERE LEAVING.
Thanks to my friend and author Samantha Ettus’ recent truth-telling post on her Facebook page, I’ve been inspired to share the reality of what happened on our weekend family trip. (Samantha is nationally known as a Work/Life Balance Expert, and has a wicked smart new book to help all of us conquer the trickiness of ‘balance’ called The Pie Life: A Guilt-Free Recipe for Success and Satisfaction. Get it now. I have it and it’s fabulous.) I figure, if she can pull the curtain back and expose the truth about what we all see in pictures… there’s no harm to my reputation either. So here goes…
The day before, my husband and girls and I were hanging by a hotel pool in Palm Springs. It was a last minute trip (on account of me being antsy to do something on Labor Day weekend but not having the foresight to have planned anything ahead of time… so I called, booked a last-minute room and trucked everyone there the next day for a banzai overnight stay). An organization my family has been involved with was having their annual convention at this hotel so I knew we’d see a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in a while. FUN! (That was part of the motivation to go.)
Like I said, we were at the pool. I saw someone I knew from my childhood. We started catching up. One of my daughters immediately starting trying to get my attention in a very, shall we say, strong-willed way (in a certain way that she certainly knows better to not do). I get it, you want to go in the pool. So we all got in the pool and continued to visit with this acquaintance of mine… her older daughters were now entertaining my daughters. FUN!
We got out of the pool, my husband took one of our girls up to the room for a rest and I stayed with my our other girl to soak in more sun. I got myself a pina colada with a mad extra shot of dark rum on top — something I didn’t know they did there until I got the drink and thought WhatTheHeckIsThatOhMyI’mAGonerNow. (Don’t worry, I didn’t say what it was.)
I soon saw another person from my past with his entire adorable family in tow. “Hi!” “How are you?” “Nice to see you!” All the usuals… until my daughter started hitting me on the back to get my attention. One second honey… can you say hi to my friends here? We all knew each other when we were kids! Look! They have kids your same age! Let’s just say some more really naughty stuff went down to the point that the top part of my pina colada went flying into the air and splashed on all of us. That was IT.
I tried to maintain some kind of pleasant decorum and said goodbye — hey, we were all parents, we’ve all been there. I marched my daughter back to our chaise lounge chair and made it very clear that what just happened was not okay. She apologized. I accepted. I told her that she’s usually such a nice girl but what just happened was really, really naughty. I then escorted her up to our hotel room (with my husband and other daughter in there) and banned her from the pool for a while (I may’ve yelled some). I went back down to my chaise lounge chair.
Now I was at a family vacation by myself. ?!?!!!??! What was that?!? I fumed. I sent this text to my mom:
I sat there, steaming (mentally and physically now, it was freaking hot outside). I sipped what was left of my pina colada. I snapped a selfie because, what else do you do when you’re by yourself on a family vacation and slightly tipsy thanks to that absurd dark rum shot floating on top of your drink?
Not bad for a non-20 year old, right? I do look pretty angry though. (I was.) I sat, drank, watched, snapped. So this was vacation…
About 30 minutes later, my husband appeared in front of my chaise lounge with both girls in tow. The one responsible for the offense said she learned her lesson and that she’d think before pulling a stunt like that again. We hugged it out. I did my due diligence parenting; about how to nicely get someone’s attention if you need it, explaining appropriate behavior in public and the dangers of giving people the wrong impression if you act a certain way. She got it. We got back in the pool. We played. (I still might take away her gymnastics if this happens again though.) We all had a nice dinner that night and my girls were the sweetest little sweethearts around. We went to sleep, woke up, grabbed a quick breakfast the next morning and snapped this picture as we were loading up the car to head back home:
NOW YOU KNOW. Being a mom is about bouncing back from the manual labor of parenting that is tough, trying and inevitably typical when raising kids is involved. There are no fails as long as you keep moving forward. Happy days, happy family, happy picture-taking…
