Friday Tapas: The Discombobulated Edition

This post could have easily been titled Friday Tapas: The Reality Bites Edition. Or Friday Tapas: The Post-Vacation Blues Edition. Or even Friday Tapas: The “I Need a Vacation from my Vacation” Edition.

Regardless of what it was called, the underlying sentiment would have been the same: Coming home from vacation sucks.

And so while my feet are firmly planted back in reality, my mind seems to be on a permanent vacation – knee-deep in the water somewhere, with the blue sky breeze [still] blowing wind through my hair.

That said, my apologies for the half-baked tapas this week.

Also? I’m fresh out of wine.

• Ah, to be a kid again. Lil’ Bit and I arrived home Sunday night with very little gas left in our tanks – figuratively speaking – and went to bed shortly thereafter. But while I lay awake riddled with anxiety over returning to work the following day, she slept like a rock. Nary a peep from the same child who talked in her sleep constantly during our seven nights of bunking together at the beach. But then, why shouldn’t she sleep well? Her transition back into the real world involved going from days of fun playing at the beach with Nonnie and Pop to days of fun playing at school with all her friends. Meanwhile, I returned to looming deadlines and approximately 537 unread e-mails. Causing me to ponder – not for the first time – why, exactly, I was always in such a damn hurry to grow up as a kid.

• I had grand aspirations to spend at least part of my vacation (the part where Lil’ Bit was sleeping) catching up on my writing. I’ll get way ahead on blog posts, I thought excitedly. Maybe I’ll even write something for submission to Aiming Low!  Not to mention RichmondMom.com, for whom I’m supposed to be a contributor. After all, when would I have a more perfect opportunity to become one with my thoughts than on a “relaxing” vacation?

Didn’t happen. Not only did I naively underestimate (laughably so) just how active a trip with a toddler would be, something about being on vacation renders my brain incapable of stringing together a coherent sentence, much less an entire article. And so the desire to remain ahead of my blog posts in order to pursue other writing avenues remains frustratingly elusive.

• Following her inaugural night home, Lil’ Bit has descended into a [hopefully short-lived] wakeful phase that finds all three of us up several times a night, every night. And as frazzled as I’ve been feeling, I think the sleep deprivation is really starting to get to Hubs – late this week at dinner, he mindlessly poured a beer over his steak salad instead of dressing. And then ate it anyway!

• Since Hubs wasn’t able to come to the beach with us due to work, I was largely on my own with Lil’ Bit in terms of the day-to-day grind of parenthood. As a result, I gained a whole new respect for single moms. Not to mention a deeper appreciation for my husband, who obligingly shares our parental duties and is, quite simply, an amazing dad. And he was missed – both by me and by Lil’ Bit, who each night over the phone told him in the most adorably heartbreaking way, “I miss you, Daddy.” (And Boo, too, she’d add.)

• On Tuesday, in my discombobulated post-vacation state of mind, I locked Lil’ Bit and myself out of the house as we left for work/school that morning. My brain registered that I was not, in fact, holding my keys the moment I stepped out the door; unfortunately, my arm was slightly quicker and pulled it shut anyway, even as as a little voice inside my head cried out, “NOOOOOOOO!” (And if you read that in slow motion for dramatic effect, then you will have essentially captured the gist of the scene.) Fortunately, our neighbor who took care of our cat over Christmas still had our spare key – and no doubt appreciated me, holding a toddler on my hip, ringing her doorbell at 7:30 a.m., forcing her husband to sprint up the stairs in his underwear. (Thanks, Shelley! Sorry, Chris.)

Lil’ Bit, for her part, found the entire debacle thoroughly entertaining.

• I really miss the beach.

And here are a few of my favorite reads this week from some ladies whose thoughts were clearly more organized than mine:

• For relevancy purposes, I generally try to contain these highlights to posts from the current week. But since I was on vacation, I’m giving myself a pass to delve into last week’s archives. Besides, Go Down Moses by Jennifer at Kvetch Mom about the seder she attended for Passover is just too hilariously awesome not to share. Plus, it made me burst into several renditions of “Go Down Moses” a la Cameron in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off that completely cracked my shit up. And finally, the paragraph about two little girls (one of whom belonged to Jennifer) farting during The Four Questions left me giggling a full ten minutes after I’d finished the post. Because I am really a 12-year-old boy trapped inside the body of a 37-year-old woman.

• In I Wonder, Alison from Mama Wants This muses about three long-lost friends who are not on Facebook, thereby making themselves thoroughly unstalkable (the sheer nerve of some people, right?). The piece has a sweetly nostalgic tone to it and caused me to think about Tim, an old friend from my summer camp days with whom I had a falling out over a decade ago. I sometimes wonder about Tim and wish that we could reconnect and catch up. So Tim, if you’re by chance reading this (seeing as I do make myself stalkable on the Internet), know that I’m sorry. I’ve missed talking to you over the years. And I would very much like to see your face again someday.

• Family planning seems to be a hot topic in the blogosphere lately and this week Jen Havice of When Pigs Fly shared yet another unique perspective in the Scary Mommy Society with her compelling post entitled The Child-Free Life. The piece knocked me out of the nostalgic fog in which I’d been enveloped ever since the somewhat belated realization that the word ‘vacation’ takes on an entirely different meaning when there’s a child involved. It was difficult not to think back wistfully on the relaxing pre-baby vacations I once took in what feels like another life. And then I read the last line of Jen’s post: In the end, the moments we think we’d like to trade in seem to be made up by all the ones we never would. And I was reminded that, even amid the frustrations and inconveniences of parenthood, I can’t imagine not experiencing the joy my daughter brings me. A good read for parents and non-parents alike.

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Next week, I’m going to get my shit together and offer self-learned, Pinterest and stumble-worthy tips for enjoying the beach with a toddler and surviving long car rides with a toddler (I’m talking 12 hours, people). All in an effort to blatantly share some [more] of my favorite vacation photos. Because that’s how the [non-discombobulated] mind of a blogger works – it’s all about the angle.

In the meantime, I’m going to finally unpack my suitcase (maybe). And stock up on wine (definitely). So, here’s to a productive weekend.

Cheers!

What’s on your mind?