Vacation Hangover

Bye Bye Hotel

 

Bye bye hotel. Bye bye vacation. The cruel trick of coming home from a few days in a new reality. It’s like coming off a drug, where you don’t simply go back to the normal baseline, but take a dip into depression before the bouncing back happens. Our final meal together, at our hometown brewery, only a few minutes away from home, I could feel us slipping back into the REAL us, not the vacation us that held hands and flirted and drank too many mimosas to keep track. Our return felt right, but the crumbs on the carpet grated against our nerves, and we slipped into checking our phones and trying to catch up on all our DVR’ed shows. The baby was clingy. The dog was barking. The grandparents wanted to hear, and tell, every detail of the weekend.

It was like being hungover. That cotton mouth, shitty sleep, headachy feeling after a long night of drinking. I think it’s worth it to go on a vacation, especially since it had been two years since we’ve had an alone weekend, but the yucky re-entry feeling sometimes doesn’t feel worth it, you know? If it was shitty on the front end, maybe, but shitty on the re-entry…it’s almost enough to make me think about holding off on another vacation any time soon. Good thing I have my Albuquerque trip in 5 weeks to get my feet wet again!

Holiday Fallout

Who’s brilliant idea was it to take these lovely vacations that would mean missing daycare? Sigh. While my parents were the actual instigators (reserving the cabins without asking me, first), I figured that Potamus had a few vacation days (free week off from daycare without paying) to use up, so we might as well miss some days. He only goes on Monday/Wednesdays, so I figured it’d be no big deal, right?

Can I just tell you, that there is NOTHING that prepared me for the sadness of coming across my itty bitty boy standing in the middle of the playground with his friends, crying. Snot-nosed, bawling, with all these happy friendly other kids around. The ten days without daycare has left him, both days this week very sad, with the teachers saying “he cried most of the day.”

Break my heart in a million pieces why don’t you?

I mean, typically he’s happy when I go to pick him up, and only starts crying when he sees me. One teacher, who was subbing in (she used to work with him in the infant room), said “I’ve never seen him this sad all day since he first started.” Again, knife in the heart. Clearly the transition back to school is going to be harder after vacation than I thought…and I’m trying to just chalk it up to ‘lessons learned,’ but I feel so bad about him being separated from me for 8 hours…especially when I KNOW that I could actually be watching him…sigh…mama guilt…

Cabin Camping on Cama Beach!

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Potamus, Boof and I met up with my parents on Camano Island at the lovely Cama Beach State Park. We stayed in their pet-friendly cabins, which were RIGHT on the water! While the shores of Puget Sound can’t really compare to the majestic Oregon Coast, in terms of magnitude of waves and loveliness of sand, it was really nice to be within a stone’s throw of the water! While our cabins were in the 2nd row, we could still see (and hear!) the water from our front porch!

Our days were spent swimming, drinking beer, watching Potamus climb driftwood and collect rocks/shells. He slept great the first night and crappy the second, but who said vacations were supposed to be relaxing for parents, anyway? The weather was amazing, and it was lovely to beat the heat of Seattle! Since it’s only 1 hour and 30 minutes from Seattle, I think the consensus was that this place will be an annual trip, while we’ll save the big years for the Oregon Coast extravaganza! So, here you go, a few pics from the trip:

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the waves are smaller and the beach is rockier, but he is drawn to the water nonetheless!

 

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people can rent sailboats (and kayaks and rowboats) right there at the Center for Wooden Boats right on the beach!

 

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cabins, taken from the beach

 

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swimmin’ lessons!

 

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driftwood fort with grammy and grampy

 

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spatulas, good for making dinner…or scooping sand (er, rocks)

 

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the shoreline was gorgeous

 

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shoulder rides with daddio

 

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taxidermy freaks me out

 

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building a little wooden sailboat at the Center for Wooden Boats children’s area!

 

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wagon rides

 

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always covered in marinara

 

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this’ll probably end up as our Christmas card