We've been back from Florida for around 2 weeks now. I'm past telling everyone the trip was a bust - a view likely fueled post-trip exhaustion. But the highlights have also had time to settle out. And the ever-present critic inside has a list of the things she'd do differently for next time. So it's time to write and get a bit of all of it off my chest.
First, the background. While my hubby and I were regular world travelers in our BC lives (BC being Before Children) the most we'd done with 3 kids was a road trip. This was a 12 day trip with 4 kids in tow ON AN AIRPLANE. Whoa!
A few weeks before we left, the magnitude of the disaster we could be in for hit me. It hit as my not-yet-two-year-old was throwing the food he wasn't interested in anymore on the floor. Another wave of it crashed as my 4 year old whined for hours about a host of minor issues. And still another wave came on as I watched she and her older sister bicker about ridiculous things, and observed how I, with my small portion of patience, dealt with it all.
Fearing the worst, I enlisted my best parenting practices and constructed a count-down chain. On each link I'd written the behavior we would be practicing for the day - all behaviors attempting to lead up to children who would not bring shock and horrific awe to the lovely folks in the east who feel 4 children is a lot. I didn't want to confirm their biases with MY kids.
Anyway, among other things, we practiced:
Living on a schedule: The schedule was geared to keeping a routine for the trip. "School work" WAS required. It was brief (as always), anticipating that on the trip, I would have them do SOMETHING, like record what they did for the day and why they liked it. We also scheduled and practiced quiet time. That was to not only to give hubby and me down time, but so that they could grow in self-entertaining abilities in a confined space. (They self-entertain GREAT at home, but it isn't necessarily quiet or in one spot.)
This payed off. I did not, as I had anticipated, hold to any specific schedule OR require anything resembling school work of them. (Though I did suggest from time to time that they could write in their travel journals.) Anyway, this practice DID make the trip smoother, but, the added bonus was that it made the time leading up to the trip smoother too. When I get deep in projects (like prepping 6 people for a 12 day voyage across the country) I can tend to let our daily routines go to pot. That usually leads to the kids' needs being neglected (school needs, but eating, sleeping, and cleaning needs too) and the result is chaos. The chain and our decision to adhere as closely to a schedule as we could (after all, we have very little practice) payed off in pre-trip peace.
We also practiced increasing our gratitude expressed AND our complaints minimized, and taking no for an answer. (This too payed off as the sincere thanks the kids expressed DID make a lot of headache worth it, and we bypassed much of the energy-depleting pleading and griping.)
Finally, (and closely related to what I've just mentioned) we reviewed the concept of letting go - being at peace with what is. I explained that sometimes our trip would be fun, sometimes boring. Some things would live up to our expectations, and other times they would't. I told them we can be happy anyway.
I tried to practice this attitude before we left with my mantra: the adventure starts NOW. I found myself feeling a lot of stress as preparations intensified. (I imagine even seasoned travelers have situations arise where they aren't completely familiar with the rules/how to navigate the literal or figurative lay of the land.) Being absent from Orlando for 20 years, having never gone with kids, I worried. Would I find all the right hotels? Would my efforts to save money pay-off or wind up costing us MORE? Would I pick the right days to hit the right places? Would the weather cooperate? Would our fellow travelers look with admiration at the ear-piercing volume my baby can hit, or would there be daggers in their eyes? These worries dominated my conscious mind. They took energy to juggle and stress over.
Then it hit me: I WON'T maneuver every obstacle, challenge, and decision point perfectly. Period. There will be less than ideal moments. Some I will create. Some will be out of my control. And they are ALL part of the journey. ALL the ups and ALL the downs will be a part of our adventure together, and I can embrace it all IN the spirit of adventure, even before we leave the comforts of our home....
So?
I am pleased to report that the kids were amazing!!! My whiney one rolled smoothly with puking on the final leg of the trip out! All the kids were total troopers in their plastic ponchos in the rain for every Disney day. They even pleasantly suffered with the stomach flu, conveniently hitting only at night when we were on our cruise.
I, however, for all my mantra-ing, didn't fair so well. I just shifted from worry to disappointment. "Seriously? We ALL have to get sick on the cruise?!" "Seriously, it has to rain every stinking day we spend at Disney?" "Seriously? There are STILL lines MID-WEEK IN FEBRUARY IN THE RAIN!!!!?" "Seriously? I'm getting the pat down because there may be a chance this white, middle-aged woman traveling with 4 kids poses a terrorist threat!?"
Okay. So maybe it was less disappointment and more disgust. But I learned from that too!
Related to Disney, I learned, despite all the hype, IT IS AN AMUSEMENT PARK - ergo there is a bunch of over-priced merchandise and food around every corner AND yes! there are lines! Disney is not a life experience - unless theme parks are your life. No judgement if that's you. MY most magical place on earth so far is probably having a whole jungle island to myself and hubby off the coast of Taiwan.
I realized it was foolish, theme parks NOT being my life, to plan a vacation with one primary destination being a theme park. In the future, our family trips might seem more magical to me if we are somewhat remote, surrounded by nature and/or immersed in another culture. And there needs to be plenty of unscheduled down time to explore. This trip's highlight for hubby was a walk we went on to find food on Sunday. Along the way we saw a bunch of cool trees, relaxed with the kids, and saw a bird stalking and having for dinner an unfortunate lizard. So unscripted and in nature seem to be key for him too.
In the end, despite my late Disney revelation, AND despite our various misfortunes, the trip was a smashing success! Why? We benefited from our travel in the best possible ways. Though I thought we were vacationing to get away from the Cache Valley winter, or the post-holiday slump, or to take a break from our routine, or to do something fun, I learned by my experiences what travel really means, and why we need to keep traveling.
First, now I've got a trip behind me, I'm all practiced up and I think I can worry a lot less going into it. But there are more significant reasons than that.
Travel, when we take on it's challenges just right, means we grow in grace as individuals. As we see and know more of the world, we understand better what it means to be American, Mormon, human. We saw so many different people. We heard so many different accents and languages. We ate new food. We tried new things, experienced different climates.
When I was a missionary preparing to go to Taiwan, from time to time I would run into negative reports about the country. It was stinky. It rained a lot. It was so humid. When I arrived, I reported home that it smelled like New York, it rained like Seattle, and was as humid as Florida. Because I had been to all these other places for other adventures, I didn't need Taiwan to be like Utah. My acceptance of Taiwan for how it was didn't miss a beat, nor did my personal confidence to maneuver the uncertain. (Though it was certainly tested.)
I think of grace, among other things, as a confident approach to the unfamiliar, whether it be people, circumstances, or places. Growing up studying ballet, I was blessed to be so repeatedly thrown out of my comfort zone that being out became it's own comfort. The trip was a success, first, because I remembered this aspect of grace. And my children had the opportunity to grow in grace too, making the trip SO worth it because THEY DID.
PS: Other practical points:
Two year olds are too young for cruises. Unless perhaps yours is an only, or the only one traveling with you. Otherwise, cruises are AMAZING with kids. And be sure to order one of all the adult entres on the dinner menus to increase your dining prowess and skip the kid food they will kindly try to provide for your kiddos.
Tourist traps ARE great places to get little tastes of the whole world.
When everyone says "Stay IN Disney World - it's worth it," what they really mean is, "It is so miserable getting in and out of Disney World that even though your hotel has a free and convenient shuttle, it is crowded, not a brief ride, and your young kids, ripe with exhaustion will have their best melt downs there. In reality, what IS 'worth it' is to END the suffering of standing, waiting, and moving in a crowd." Could Disney have come up with such compelling reason? I wouldn't put it past them.
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