Our Trip To Dubai: Lesson Number Two

In my last post, I mentioned my belief that "family vacations" for moms should really be referred to as "business trips." Here is just one of the many reasons why. 

Let me set the scene for you: it's 4 am in our hotel room in Dubai. DeMarko and I are sleeping on either side of Liam.

Liam (to me): Wake. Wake. Wake.

Me: (pretend to be asleep).

Liam (grabbing my shoulder now, trying to turn me over): Wake. Wake. Wake.

Me: (continue pretending to be asleep, which has worked for about an hour now).

Liam (attempting to climb on me): I climb mountain. I climb mountain. 

Me: Why don't you go climb on Daddy? He's a bigger mountain. 

Liam: No. I climb mountain. I climb mountain.

Me: Okay. Okay. You want some milk and Disney Junior?

*A couple hours later.

Me: Did you hear your son this morning?

Husband: Yeah, I was awake. I heard you jokers all morning.

Me: Ummm, no. If I could hear you snoring, you were NOT awake.

Husband: I see your point.

 
An alarm clock with the ability to physically harass you?! This does not a vacation make. 

When I was a young, single person, my vacations looked like this: wake up, go drink at the pool, take a nap, wake up, get ready, go out all night. Repeat.There may or may not have been photos circulating, at one point, of me passed out in a locked bathroom stall in Las Vegas. And my boss at the time may or may not have had to army crawl under said bathroom door in order to save me from the bowels of the toilet. On our "vacations" now, I can barely keep my eyes open til 8pm.

And do you know that these little "vacations" of ours actually make my job harder? Between the packing and giving Liam extra baths and taking him to the pool (which is real work, people) and out to eat and helping him press the elevator buttons every, single time, and the fact that I'm expected to put on make-up AND change out of my yoga pants for multiple days in a row, I am so exhausted by the time the day is over that my dream of enjoying a few drinks on the balcony with my dear husband is crushed, so I just (very happily) send him down to the bar.

And the worst problem of all: I have to leave our hotel room to get coffee, which requires me to be somewhat functional BEFORE coffee. I know, right?! Almost impossible. I can barely survive the few minutes it takes between the time I wake up and the time my coffee finishes brewing every morning.

I know. I know. I am fully aware that these are "first world problems." I know that the ability to take a vacation (heck, even buy a coffee at Starbucks) is a luxury that cannot be afforded by most people. Trust me: none of this is lost on me, but I wanted to share anyways, because it's funny, and, well, because mothering is hard no matter how (or where) you do it.