well, i've been eagerly anticipating this week for most of the summer, and it's finally here! yes, this is the week that my family and i leave for vacation. i'm especially excited because it will be morgan's first time ever at the beach and i hope she loves it as much as i think she will. she loves to swim, and one of her fave things to do at home is sit in her sandbox and throw sand everywhere and make a mess -- which are the two things she'll get to do a lot of next week and will hopefully love at the beach.
there's always so much pre-planning to do before vacation, though, and even more than i ever realized now that we have a child. no more grabbing a few pair of shorts, flip flops, tossing everything in a small suitcase and heading out the door -- nope, we now have to make sure we have beach umbrellas (so morgan doesn't burn in the sun), sand pails and toys for the beach (to build the perfect sandcastle and hopefully keep her from wanting to constantly eat sand or run head-on into the ocean), spf 70 in spray form (again, the no-burn thing -- a red screaming child at the beach isn't my idea of fun), a backpack to hold all of her gear at the beach (so that i can hold onto her, along with the beach chairs, umbrellas, blankets, cooler, toys, and all the other assorted stuff that will be weighing us down as we trod onto the sand). hell, i even found a site online that has vacation checklists that you can print out -- since we've never done a full-fledged vacation with a child (and yes, since i'm a control freak...) i wanted to make sure that we have all our bases covered and i'm not forgetting something vital. after all, i don't want to scar my daughter for life because i forgot to pack her fave juice boxes to drink on the beach.
her clothes have been washed and set aside for a week, and i'm finishing up the last of the laundry tonight...so now it's time to grab her toys and find that ones to take that either (a) aren't going to cause a meltdown if we happen to lose them while we're there, or (b) don't have so many pieces to them that they'll get scattered throughout the beach house we're staying in, or (c) don't require batteries to operate that will inevitably go dead while we're there, or (d) aren't so cumbersome that they'll take up valuable packing space, or (e) won't cause a meltdown because she can't play with them during the 24 hours between the time they're packed and the time we arrive at the beach. so once i narrow down that list (unfortunately, i didn't locate a list on the 'net for selecting the perfect toys to take on vacation), i will hopefully have one less thing to worry about.
as much as i love this time of the year and look forward to it each summer, there's always a melancholy sadness that goes along with it for me. summer is my favorite time of year, without a doubt -- i hate winter, hate snow and ice (even though it is quite beautiful), don't like to be cold, don't participate in winter sports because i don't like to be cold (and i live in the northeast, where we get actual winters and school delays and closings), yada yada. problem is, right after summer is over, fall is quickly ushered in, and that means winter isn't far behind. in my mind, once vacation is over, it's all downhill from there because cold weather will soon be on its way....and along with it, snow, ice, and darkness when i get up and when i leave my office at the end of the day.
even though i'm a glass-is-half-full kinda gal, this is one thing that's always gotten me down as long as i can remember in my adult life. i've always fought to stay positive after i get home from vacation, but i don't totally succeed. sure, this year will be fun because morgan will be more into halloween and we'll have so much fun picking out our costume and dressing up. the chancellor at the college where i work has an awesome halloween party for faculty and staff at her home and i look forward each year to dressing up and having a great time. and fall is no doubt very beautiful where i live, and morgan and i will have a great time jumping in the piles of leaves and picking out pumpkins, and we might even attempt a corn maze this year, which was hard to do in a stoller last fall. but that dark cloud of impending winter still permeates my thoughts and bums me out. i'll try more than ever to not let it interfere with enjoying all the great moments of the season with my husband and daughter that i possibly can....and who knows, maybe i'll even find a checklist online that will tell me all i need to do to have the perfect winter!! if you have any ideas to keep me bright and sunny instead of cold and dreary, do share :)
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