Our second vacation with the kids, we decided it made more sense to drive. We wanted to save money and didn’t want to deal with whole airport fiasco like the last time. The drive from Tampa to North Carolina wasn’t so bad. We drove overnight so the kids could sleep and they mostly did. We got there in the morning and the plan was for my husband to take a nap as soon as we got there.
Within hours, he started to feel sick to his stomach.
Then the puking began.
He was laid up in bed for 24 hours, periodically rising from the dead to give the potty a long embrace.
Shortly after midnight, the virus wrapped its slimy tentacles around my daughter. She destroyed a comforter, so we relocated to another bed in the house where she proceeded to puke all over again. She would puke, cry, I would comfort her, start laundry, relocate and then the whole process would begin again. Eventually, we ran out of unused sheets and beds and opted for a towel on a bare mattress.
Shortly after breakfast, it got me.
My son is apparently some kind of mutant soldier or machine. Never got it. (little S.O.B.) (Wait, that means I’m the “B”… nevermind)
At least somebody had fun.
So, it was pretty much 3 days quarantined in a guest house, sleeping and puking.
By the time we got to my mom’s in South Carolina, everyone had recovered. By the last day of the trip, it hit my mother like a brick wall. Her joyfully insane boyfriend was setting off fireworks in the backyard while Alma screamed in terror and my mom kept shouting “STOP IT!” from her bed in between vomiting in a bucket with her loyal dog by her side.
That was the night we drove home. My son screamed the entire way home. Think I’m kidding? I’m not. I silently cried so much that there were no more tears by the time we got home.
Pulling into the driveway, my husband and I nearly said simultaneously, “We are never going on vacation again.”
Our kids? Well, they promptly fell peacefully asleep the second we arrived home.
We are masochists, stupid enough to envision our children prancing through wildflowers while we picnic and drink wine, dozing in the sun.
Gorgeous, right? Taken from the side of the road after stepping out of a car. Nope, no fun was had here.
Why can’t we just picture the reality of screaming children, endless vomiting and a nervous breakdown and STAY HOME? Maybe because all of the rest of you hide your misery, post awesome pics from Disney and the beach, preferring to say you had a fantastic, relaxing vacation.
You’re all full of shit though, right? Right???
Living The American Scream 
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