Spring Break Family Style

Everyone knows what kinds of images the words "Spring Break" bring to mind. Some people know this from personal experience, but not me. I have never gone to a warm place to drink and dance around in a wet t-shirt, take God knows what kinds of drugs and have dubious sexual encounters. It's not that I'm a prude; it's that I was not that popular or adventurous, and my dad wouldn't have let me go anyway. The closest I ever came to a Spring Break adventure was vicariously through my younger brother who drove to Miami Beach with three of his friends when he was in college, and they had so little money that they lived off 50 McDonalds hamburgers that they bought on special and kept in the trunk of their car for a week.

Spring Break is an activity for the young and unencumbered. In other words, it is not a family activity. Spring Break is about breaking rules. Students on Spring Break do things that they would not normally do, or at least they do them in a different place and to a different degree. But rules are, to a large degree, what keep family life sane and manageable. No, we don’t eat candy at 9:30 in the morning, we don’t hit people, throw food, sit in front of the TV for three hours, or wear the same underwear six days in a row. And rules are harder to enforce on vacation because you don't have any of your normal routines, so everything starts to be about what rules to relax and when, and to what degree. You have none of the built-in breaks of your normal life, and exponentially more negotiations about behavior.

As a parent, of course, you are the enforcer of the rules, which is not fun, and makes you feel mean-spirited and angry. This year we went to a state park on the Mississippi, and I had visions of myself cycling gently along a sunny path lined with crocuses, smiling at the boys pedalling alongside, but what happened is that I ended up standing in a weird-smelling hotel room yelling, "Turn off your stupid Game Boy and get dressed! We are not staying inside all day and get your underwear off the floor before the people come to make the beds!"

At every meal we engaged in Jesuitical negotiations with the boys such as can they have Coke and if so, can they have refills? If they have refills, can they also have dessert? Do they have to order from the children’s menu if they are almost 11, i.e. not 10 and under, or can they get filet mignon? Can they watch TV later or just a movie? Why do they have to go outside for a bike ride or a hike? Why can't they just stay inside playing Game Boy, watching TV or going to the pool?

And of course you're together all the time. Every second of every day, without any of the breaks you would have at home. This vacation was the first one where we rented adjoining rooms, and yet Martin and I were never alone because we have a 16-month-old who was in our room with us. Noah and Jacob were jumping on the beds watching Cartoon Network at 10:30 at night while Martin and I were crouching in the bathroom trying to read by the light of a dim bulb that wouldn't wake up the baby.

Being together for uninterrupted stretches of time highlights every weird thing about the boys in particular and family life in general. I love my sons, and find them to be funny and interesting people, but only for about 20 minutes at a time. On the four-hour drive, they played their Game Boys, which meant that every three minutes they would say something like, "Diamonds are falling from the sky" or "I need four more pairs of underwear" or "I just froze water and am walking across the ocean." Their eyes were glazed over and I would have to ask three times if they had to go to the bathroom before they would answer. Then they would say "no," and two minutes later yell that they had to go to the bathroom "VERY badly." I stared out the window and worried about their attention spans and my impatience, and the effects of technology and Cheetos on their development, and if this was better or worse than the family vacations I took with my parents and what that means.

And then, there was The Complaining.

The first day, we biked five miles on a hilly bike path, and my oldest son complained every single second of the way. Then he complained the whole way back. Ten miles of complaining in his loud, shrill voice, interrupted only by the sound of him periodically getting off his bike and throwing it to the ground. The next day we hiked two miles up a hill to view the point where the Mississippi, Illinois and Missouri rivers converge, and he complained that his feet hurt, he was bored and he was hot. He picked up sticks and hurled them against trees, kicked his feet against the ground, and yelled at us to wait for him. Then he asked when we were having lunch, whether he could watch TV when we got back, and how much longer was it to the top. At the top he wanted to know how long it would take to get to the bottom, and could we stop at the Visitor’s Center gift shop. Once, my husband said, “It must be hard to be him.”

The thing was that often he was only saying the things that I was thinking but have trained myself not to say out loud. I wonder how long it is to the top and if the baby will fall asleep and if he does, will he sleep later, and what is there for lunch and how long is it until the wine and cheese and am I gaining weight from the lodge food or losing weight from the hiking and is this as fun as it’s going to get?

I loved riding with Gabriel in the bike seat, loved seeing him watch the grackles, loved seeing him in Martin’s arms in the pool. I loved talking to Jacob about the mouse in the book he is reading as we hiked along, stepping over branches, catching glimpses of the Mississippi through the trees. I loved eating dessert with Noah in the lodge dining room, apple pie for him, chocolate pecan for me, whipped cream for both. It was lovely and stressful and funny and annoying. I wished we could have stayed a few more days. I couldn’t wait to get home.

In the car on the way home Noah, who did not say one positive thing the entire time said, "That was such a great trip." And I had to agree that it was.