SeaWorld

This past spring Nate and I decided to buy passes to SeaWorld for our family that would allow us unlimited admission through the end of the year. We took a trip in the spring, one in the summer, and one the weekend before Thanksgiving as our final hurrah! We also visited the USS Midway, which proved to be a fantastic activity for our kids and a place we will definitely need to visit again.

However, before we left on our trip, there were a few items of business that needed to get done. If you are like me and can't (or won't) leave a messy house before you go on vacation, regardless of how long or short the trip, there will be some cleaning required before you leave. There was also laundry, although very minimal, packing, and food to be prepped.

Everyone is different when it comes to vacation time, but for our family I like to pack snacks for the car ride...healthy snacks. Although I do occasionally splurge on chips or cookies, I know that I feel better when I eat better and my body makes no exceptions, not even for road trips. With my parents living almost a thousand miles away, I have made many, many road trips over the years and feel that there is nothing worse than the effects of sitting in the car all day and eating crap.

So here it is Thursday morning, the day before our trip and I plan to get right to work...that is after I complete my mandatory volunteer hours at my daughters school, visit the doctor during lunch, and teach voice lessons that afternoon. When I am done it's time to get dinner ready (thankfully leftovers) and then, finally, when my energy has peaked for the day and I am bursting to the brim with exuberance and patience I now have time to get ready for our trip (says every pregnant mama at the end of the day). Wrong! I am exhausted, my feet hurt, and I just want to curl up on the couch or better yet go straight to bed.

I am not sure where we get this mentality, the one as mothers that tells us we have to do it all and be it all, but it is a real thing folks and one that has been highly talked about and written about in recent years. From the attention to this subject has come a unhealthy and slightly disturbing mentality of settling or glorifying our underachievement as homemakers and parents as we accept that there is no such thing as being perfect, being able to do it all, or have it all.

Although I whole heartily believe in accepting our inability to do it all, embracing our weaknesses, and our need to understand that our best is good enough, why have we not discussed that our inability to do it all is an opportunity, the perfect opportunity to ask our children to contribute in sharing our load? After all, do they not benefit from the fruits of our labors as much as we do? This family trip is a trip for the family, which means that everyone, parents and children, are to benefit from the enjoyment of getting away. Why then is it my sole responsibility to do all the work to get us there? Shouldn't we all have an equal investment in this trip (the equal portion being relative to age and individual ability).Well, I can tell you that at our house and in our family if you want to enjoy a family trip you better be willing to help get us there because running around the house making a mess for mom to clean up or simply watching a movie just isn't good enough for me. I am not capable of doing it all, they are capable of helping, and to me that is a match made in heaven.

So at dinner that night the following discussion (aka mom laying down the law) took place:

Me: "Alright everyone, who is excited about our trip? Wahooo!!!"
Kids: "Me!!!!"
Me: "Great! Me too! But before we can go and enjoy ourselves there are a few things that need to get done and we will not be leaving if those things do not get done. Everybody understand?"
Kids: "Yes."

While I cleaned up from dinner I gave the kids a list of items that needed to be packed in their bags and then had everyone bring their bags to me for inspection once they were ready to go. Frequent verbal check-ins were required and my oldest child had to help my youngest. Once the bags were packed and by the back door I asked each child which foods they wanted to help prepare. The older kids washed and bagged apples, grapes, cherry tomatoes, and Cuties. Olive stood by my side and filled a bag with the veggies I was cutting. We then set up an assembly line to make sandwiches, which we froze over night. When it was all done and the kitchen was clean we rewarded ourselves with a Popsicle each.

Lastly we set the timer for a five minute pick-up (this is where everyone runs around as fast as they can picking up anything that belongs to them around the house before the timer goes off) and I then helped the youngest two quickly tidy their rooms. My oldest vacuumed for me and with the house now clean enough, and bags and food packed, I managed to pack my own things after the kids were in bed. Truth be told I probably could have stayed up really late and done all the work by myself, which would have spared my ears and emotionally exhausted self the pains of dealing with a few meltdowns along the way. However, I really felt in those precious moment as we worked together a sense of community, a connection with my children and I believe they felt it too.

We had a great trip, enjoyed our snacks, the company of one another, the Christmas lights at SeaWorld and our favorite burger joint in San Diego for some seriously good hamburgers and amazing onion rings (the best)!

Benson was too tired to eat all of his lunch...

My big takeaway from this trip was this: as a mother it is impossible for me to do everything for my family, but together, as a family team we are capable of achieving more, of being more than I could ever be on my own. This does not mean that we all pull the same weight, but that we pull equally according to our own strength and ability. My expectations for my three year old are very different than my expectations for my eight year old, and what I expect from my children is not on the same level of what I expect from myself or my husband. We, my husband and I, will always pull more weight than our children and until all my children are in school and I officially reenter the workforce the way we contribute to our family team will differ greatly. However, just like there are different positions to be played on a team sport, there are different positions we play on our family team. The key is understanding that  when we all work together and do our best that that is when we all win.