Detoxing My Kids After Vacation In 8 Easy Steps
My husband and I just finished up a week of vacation together with our kids. We both work full-time so this is not something we get to do much and every year, I forget how difficult it really is to get kids back into some semblance of a normal life after a week of Anything Goes at Nana and Papa’s camp. My kids are currently zoned out on the TV while I write and I sit here twitching knowing the next week is going to be quite difficult because not only were we all off together last week, my husband was off the entire two weeks prior. That means that they have not had to be anywhere by 7:30am for three whole weeks and are now in several bad habits that must be broken quickly if I am to keep my working mom routine humming. See below for how I will be detoxing my kids after vacation:
1. Eliminating Ginger Ale For Breakfast.
My kids do not get soda at home but they know it is readily available at my parent’s camp. We don’t do caffeine but we do allow them to have ginger ale and after a few cocktails, my resolve dies away as they go for their third can in a day. Now, we are done with it and I think my son is going to have the DT’s from the shock.
2. Putting An End To 11pm Bedtimes.
We have camp fires and they love it so much. We can’t very well leave them in the house alone sleeping while we sit outside by the fire unable to hear if anything were to go wrong. So, we all hang out together and they stay up way past their usual 8pm bedtime. I am particularly looking forward to breaking this one. Not.
3. Forcing Them To Bath Daily.
Between our general vacation laziness and the magical cleaning powers of the lake, our kids went four days without a bath this week and were freaking filthy. I am usually an obsessive daily bath kind of mom so this was a miracle of epic proportion to our kids.
4. S’mores And Ice Cream Every Day Is No Longer Happening.
We are not overly strict with desserts but it is definitely not a daily thing at our house. But it is on vacation!
5. And Also, No More Mozzarella Sticks For Dinner.
This is what our normally salad-loving 6-year old ordered for dinner the other night and I didn’t even bat an eye. All good things must come to an end. Including fried, stretchy cheeses.
Now before you think we are The Worst, we do a lot of hiking when we visit my parents and our son is a 40-lb. 5-year old with a bladder of corresponding size. We are rarely able to complete a 5-mile hike without him having to relieve himself and he knows the trees are his only option. We thought that it was understood that this was only a vacation thing until last summer when he decided to let ‘er rip in the mall parking lot without even asking. You’ve gotta be proud.
7. No More Hours And Hours Of TV.
We hit the inevitable rainy day this past week and it is easy to run out of constructive activities that do not involve a Sam and Cat marathon and day-drinking for the grown-ups. We are usually on a “weekends only” TV schedule for our kids but at that point, I simply had no eff’s to give.
8. No More “Yes”.
Between my parents (understandably- they are the grandparents, after all) indulging most every whim and my husband and I wanting to relax and not fight a million teeny battles, my kids heard plenty of “yes” over the past week. Now, many of those yeses are about to turn into a big old bag of “nope” as we return to our regularly scheduled programming. Will it suck? Yes. But that is what makes vacation so special. Sorry, kids. Mean Mommy is back in town.
(Image: BlueOrange Studio/Shutterstock)
You can reach this post’s author, Valerie Williams, on Twitter or via e-mail at mommyishvalerie@gmail.com
