I sat down and started planning –
One last hurrah trip before the end of what has felt like the shortest and most needed summer that ever was.
I began brainstorming about where we could go for a long weekend;
Somewhere semi-close.
Somewhere just far enough.
Before long I settled on Monterey, CA:
A beautiful coastal California town boasting one of the world’s most amazing aquariums,
with stunning views everywhere that you turn.
I started to get more and more excited as I clicked through photos and websites.
I love planning places to go as a family.
To me vacations are what make me feel most like I’m truly living.
I love the memories made when we briefly escape regular life.
Getting away is the only way to get to my next favorite thing:
The feeling of coming back home.
Ooh! And what about a day trip to explore Carmel, which is nestled right beside it?
Picturesque place full of gorgeous cottages and climbing flower walls.
My mind was racing with the possibilities, and mental images of casually walking in linen pants with my large brimmed hat and my sunglasses on.
I was already picturing myself there as
Carmel’s most relaxed mom,
when suddenly up over my shoulder,
my 12 year old, Tessa, popped up her head.
“What are you looking at? Oh no. A BEACH?” She groaned, completely tortured.
“Please do NOT tell me we are going there.
Please no.”
“What exactly is wrong with a beach?” I asked her in disbelief.
“Beaches are a thing highly sought.”
She sighed and slumped down on the couch beside me just pulsing with pre-teenness.
“It’s just that when you go to a beach that is the only thing you go to do.
You go, you eat a sandy sandwich, you check 6 times to see if the WIFI is finally working,
a bird tries to get your stuff,
and then you go home in a filthy car.
See. I already know about beaches.
Take me somewhere I can be surprised.”
I imagined her practically being swallowed by pink boa fluff.
I thought maybe I could still woo her with the photos of Carmel I’d been looking at.
“Look here,” I said. “Cottages. You love cottages!”
She looked at the pictures half-heartedly, just raring to judge them.
I could tell just by the angle of her mouth.
When you’re a seasoned mom of teen girls,
you get really good at reading this stuff.
“Yeah, I like cottages, but, see, this place looks like a place I can’t go with this CURRENT family.
This place is a place I’d go with a future family one day.
You know. One that is way more fun because I made it myself.
This place looks like every store is a Classic Duck.”
(Classic Duck, a local high-end trinket and decor store)
And then
“Don’t be trying to take me someplace I can’t touch things.”
Our conversation went on like this for an hour.
Me trying to convince her, and her 14 year old sister, Chloe (who had also joined in)
that they could trust me with the planning of true family fun.
Was I not the mom who had planned the trip to San Francisco and The Fairmont?
Were they not satisfied by Disneyland,
or The Boardwalk?
What about our trip to Sedona and The Grand Canyon last year?
That’s right, girls.
That’s enough talk.
Clearly I had not lost all grip on the reality of what it was like to be hip and young.
It’s like they picture that what I want is hours of birdwatching and journaling followed by walking around in high white socks and cargo shorts.
Like I’ll pass us all out bedazzled name tags, and at the end force them to do a tri-fold board display report on every type of rock we’ve passed as we’ve gone.
Once I finally convinced them that people DREAM of going to Monterey,
then came them wanting to chime in on the booking of the hotel.
Their list of desires was long and intricate.
It even included what kind of art would be allowed to be hung.
Nothing sun-bleached, or just primary colored.
Nothing with wildcats, or a horse.
I pulled up hotel after hotel on the computer to look at pictures of rooms.
That went equally well, as then Tessa would repeatedly interrupt my scrolling to loudly read each place’s worst review.
“Oh. This one looks ni….”
“I FELT LIKE I WAS SENSING MULTIPLE SPIRITS…”
“This one’s prett….”
“STRANGE ROTTING ODOR COMING FROM THE BATHROOM.”
Never in my LIFE growing up did I get to have any input into any place my family ever went to.
All I remember is what feels like a PTSD slideshow parade of shag carpet, and cement slab level of comfort beds until about 2002.
Normally the only place we ever went was camping.
(And not the glamping type of camping that my kids get.)
We got the kind where you poop in 5 gallon buckets your dad has cut a jagged hole in the lid of,
and you wipe with leaves,
and for fun you just stare, snap twigs, and sit.
Our tents were the types you see in a cartoon where you just tie a weird smelling tarp to two trees, and you would never think to complain about the musty smell of it unless you wanted to sleep in the great wide open that night so you could “get that fresh air you seem to care so much about” in the fetal position,
out in a chilly breeze,
just you and the predators all alone.
I would pay so much money to take my girls on my type of childhood trip, where you fish and clean, and cook what you caught for dinner that night, and then for three blazing hot days you smell like the inside of a gill.
I tell you what WE never made teriyaki bowls with avocado and edamame at a campsite.
We ate from nondescript dented cans.
Pop open, plop in a spoon.
Boom!
Dinner was done.
These girls have been to Disneyland, and in so many luxury hotels.
Pshhh.
Reviews.
I never got to read or write any reviews.
“1/10 – The bucket cuts my thighs and it smells.”
Kids these days are so spoiled.
I never got taken for pre-vacation manicure.
The only prep I got to do for a trip was to make sure the 20 year old water jugs got filled with the lukewarm water we would all drink out of,
and that by day seven I’d be bulging one eyeball into, checking to see if anything was floating.
I’d seen my Dad’s Listerine…
A little swirl, just to be sure.
I grew up thinking that the only people who went on actual vacations were the filthy rich.
A HOTEL instead of a motel with a burnt out sign?
That’s like a bathing in dollar bills kind of sitch.
But here I am, all grown up now,
planning a trip for the Future Family I made myself,
and girls, Mama wants the beach and some cottages with you not touching things,
so ya’ll better just HANDLE YOURSELVES.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
