No Children Allowed
Climbing out of our car, we breathed a sigh of relief! We had made it! Taking a road trip from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon with two little children was proving itself to be no easy task.
That is one of the joys of parenting: things that used to be easy, become work. Without children, vacation was a leisure affair; with children, it is a challenge to overcome.
So far, this day held to that theory. Between Google maps failing to inform us of road closure (forcing us to take quite the detour) and our one-year-old son’s car sickness as we drove through the Russian River Valley, we were ready to get out of the car.
My brother-in-law had graciously booked us a wine tasting at a vineyard owned by the company he works for. Usually, this winery has a strict “No children” policy. But… since we had a direct connection, they made an exception for our family.
I should have had the foresight that just like wearing a white shirt when eating ribs… we were asking for trouble.
My husband and I were sitting in the shade enjoying our wine and the gorgeous view of the vineyard and surrounding foothills framed by a bright blue sky. Our children were happily entertaining themselves on the lawn. It was a blissful moment we had all been waiting for.
The last few months had been a whirlwind. In March, my husband accepted a new job at an international school in Bangkok. We had three months to condense our belongings into eight checked bags, say our farewells, and be ready to move to Thailand.
During that time, my husband was working Monday through Friday as a teacher, and I worked two twelve-hour shifts every weekend as a Labor and Delivery nurse. It felt like there were never enough hours in the day to complete all the tasks on our unending to-do list.
We were a jumbled mess of burnout and exhaustion, excitement and anticipation. All that to say, life had been crazy and we needed a vacation.
As we sat on the patio, we reflected on all the things God had done in our lives to lead us to this point. We had so little time during the last few months to mentally process this major life transition that reality was finally sinking in.
Unfortunately, my picture-perfect moment came to an abrupt end when a different reality hit me as I looked up to see our son sitting on the stairs of the patio, and noticed what I hoped was just mud smeared on the outside his shorts. I went over to pick him up to assess the situation and my fear was confirmed that it wasn’t mud… it was dog poop.
“Of all the places he could have sat, why did he have to sit in a pile of dog poop???” I ask my husband.
As soon as I started to change him into his 4th outfit of the day, the series of unfortunate events continued to spiral as I discovered the culprit was his dirty diaper and not a dog. Not only was it all over the outside of his shorts (it somehow missed the inside of his shorts: a matter that I was trying to fathom), but was now smeared on the steps where he had been sitting.
“Of course, this would happen to me,” I laugh to myself as I think of the short life of my picture-perfect moment.
Upon returning my son to play on the lawn, I went inside to find our wine tasting assistant.
“This is a random question…” I said.
“But is there any chance you have some bleach or disinfectant spray that I could use?”
She gave me a puzzled look.
“My one-year-old son had a diaper explode and I need to clean up one of the steps outside. I just need anything you have that will help get it off the cement.”
I apologized profusely. She gave me a look that told me she was glad she was not in my shoes but assured me that she used to be a nanny and understood how children have a knack for putting you in awkward situations.
After we used the antibacterial wipes and water provided, we sat back down and tried to make the most of our remaining time at the winery before we had to get back on the road.
“I understand why they have a strict “No Children” policy,” my husband comments.
We laugh because there is nothing else we could do.
Leaning back in my chair, I soaked up the rest of the scenery and marveled at how perfectly imperfect life is.
There are many days when I would rather stick to my routine, where I have the safety net of my home to absorb any mishaps. Traveling with little children is certainly no easy task. But for me, the adventures are worth it. The experiences are worth it. The new memories are worth it.
As we near the end of our first year living in Thailand, we have had more opportunities for family vacations and adventures than our work schedules ever allowed us in the US. While each trip had its unique joys and storms, I haven’t had any that lived up to the obstacles of that “vacation” on the west coast.
On a positive note, our road trips to California and Oregon helped me to be mentally flexible to transition well to life as an ex-pat in a foreign country. We also tried to learn from our experience and have not attempted to go to any more locations with a “No Children Allowed” policy.
