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March 30, 2005
You Call That A Vacation?
There are some societies that still practice polygamy, and we tend to look down on them. After this week, however, I have reconsidered my position.
You may wonder why I have been thinking about polygamy. The time I spent last week with six other moms and seventeen children brought the topic to mind. I thought this post would be about wild adventures with the children. That’s what you’d expect, after all, given the setup. But instead, my time away from home made me realize that while our kids are growing up, we are, too.
Since my return from spring break I have talked to several people: my mother, my secretary, my neighbor, each of whom expressed shock at the thought that seven mothers and seventeen kids might have had FUN together in one lake house. They clearly don’t believe me when I assure them that we had a fine time, and they appear to either question my sanity or think that I don’t get out enough.
Maybe I don’t get out enough. Maybe none of the seven of us do. But I don’t think that’s it. I have a theory as to why we had such an enjoyable week. First, the background.
From an organizational standpoint, it was pretty simple. We stuck all the six year old boys downstairs in the playroom, and the older boys in the adjoining room. The red headed boys slept on sleeping bags in the hall between those rooms and the bathroom. This was wonderful placement, as the downstairs bathroom smelled eerily like a gas station bathroom. I figured those ten boys would feel right at home. I did make a mental note to tell my dad that he needs to have the septic tank pumped.
Upstairs, the three girls slept with their mothers, one of whom also had a younger son who slept with her as well. Finally, the late arrival and her three sons slept in the master suite.
The food for such a crowd might seem daunting. We’ve done this trip before, so experience, coupled with my Type A behavior, made this part a breeze. I assigned each mother a night to be responsible for the adults’ dinner and a different night to fix the kids’ dinner. Someone brought lunch food for moms and someone else brought lunch food for kids. Others brought snacks, drinks, alcohol, etc.
We have a pretty good routine, too. We watched the kids during the day, taking turns breaking up fights or tending to wounds. When five o’clock came, someone headed to the bar and prepared cocktails while another mother started filling bathtubs. Children were stripped and bathed, drinks were sipped, Easy Mac was microwaved, and soon all children were settled downstairs for their nightly screening of The Incredibles. Then the moms ate wonderful meals: shrimp with spicy mango salsa, chicken in herbed cream sauce, a baked potato bar with every topping you can think of, all accompanied by plenty of wine.
Sure, there were some problems. The first two days were rainy and coldish to us here in the Deep South. (Those of you who are still shoveling snow would describe the weather as a balmy fifty-five degrees). We solved this by staging activities in different rooms: The Incredibles movie in the den, followed by gummy worm snacks in the kitchen, Shrek 2 in the playroom, popcorn in the kitchen, a Monopoly tournament in the big boys’ room and a thorough airing of the special features on The Incredibles DVD. When we were desperate, we let the kids play on the muddy beach, and then we stuck all their clothes in the washer, whites mixed with darks (in warm water as a compromise) and tumbled them dry.
Once the sun came out we had all kinds of things to do. The kids dug in the brown, gritty sand, chased the unsuspecting ducks that swam by, and paddled from the beach to the dock in the boat. They pretended their life jackets were bulletproof vests. They threw rocks at trees and shouted when they dislodged puffs of pollen from the leaves, as the moms groaned and wondered if they had enough Benadryl and Claritin. Perhaps best of all, the boys, at least, got to enjoy peeing into the lake whenever they felt like it, as long as they first gave bystanders fair warning.
There were some fights, which we refereed. There was occasional blood, treated with band-aids emblazoned with patriotic colors. Several kids got splinters. In the spirit of vacation, (and perhaps aided by the relaxing effects of my gin and tonics) I ignored my normally stringent rules on hygiene and elected to forego the usual needle, tweezers, alcohol and antibiotic cream treatment.
I replaced it with the “Ancient Turkish Splinter Removal Method.” This consists of sitting the child on the counter, rubbing the affected areas with olive oil (preferably extra virgin) and covering the area with a band-aid. The theory is that the oil coaxes out the splinters. I have no idea whether it works. They weren’t my kids. I haven’t received any calls of complaint. It certainly eliminated the cries of terror generally heard during more traditional splinter removals and contributed to the overall ambiance of the vacation.
There were also a few minor disagreements over mothering strategies.
Q: Even on vacation, is it beneficial to watch The Incredibles more than three times a day?
A: If it is still raining, yes.
Q: Is it appropriate to feed children brownies at 9:30 p.m., after they have brushed their teeth?
A: Absolutely not, even if it is spring break. And what are those bothersome wenches still doing up? Everyone must go to bed immediately! It is time for the women to have some grown up time!
And we’d put the kids to bed, clean up the kitchen, and settle in for grown up time. It was then that things really started happening. We circled our chairs outside, set up our iPods
and took turns playing DJ. We sat on the deck, overlooking the lake, and talked until our jaws ached.
Our first observation was the one that I alluded to earlier. Polygamy has some definite advantages for the women. If a man has seven wives and seventeen children,
the wives can clean the kitchen together every night, which is much more entertaining than scrubbing pots alone. Or two wives can have fun doing the dishes, two can tuck kids in bed, and three can sit on the couch doing absolutely nothing!
And consider: if wife #4 feels like taking a nap, wife #6 can step in and watch her own kids and the red headed kids for a few hours. Then, while the husband beds down with one wife (or better yet, goes out for poker night with the guys), the wives can hang out and gab all night, until it’s time to start the whole Pop-Tart and orange juice thing again. Keeping
a house is not nearly as boring when there are six other people to share the load. But that was just one topic of conversation.
Every night we talked. We talked about the ups and downs of marriage. Fights over finances, how much sex is really enough. We dissected the divorces some had endured. We discussed infertility, drug addiction, homosexuality, caring for aging parents, caring for children with medical problems, having medical problems yourself. We gave each other honest opinions, even when they hurt.
We talked about dating after divorce, orthodontia (expensive) and how to deal with in-laws who never see their grandchildren, even though they live in the same town. (These grandparents recently sent my friend a formal email requesting her children for sleepovers on certain nights. They were perfectly aware, of course, that my friends already had plans on most of these days. Hooray! The grandparents got “credit” for “wanting” to see the grandchildren without actually having to follow through!).
We talked about faith. We’re a pretty faithful bunch. We laughed until we cried. Sometimes we did it backwards and cried until we had to laugh. That, or throw ourselves into the lake. It’s a wonder our tongues didn’t shrivel up and fall out.
I confessed to the group that I’ve been feeling extremely guilty lately. They immediately demanded details. Had I stolen? Lied? Committed adultery? No, no and NO!
Here’s my dirty little secret. I’ve been taking naps. Every afternoon, when the kids are home from school, and I have a little time before I have to fix dinner, I have a “sinking spell” when my back starts to ache, my head gets foggy, and I have to lie down. Sometimes I even sleep a little. Of course, this makes me feel incredibly ashamed. It’s as if I’m sleeping on the job.
My stalwart friends rose to my defense immediately.
“You have three boys on three different baseball teams,” Wife #2 pointed out.
“You drive Finn a long way to drum lessons every week,” Wife #1 said.
“And you’re working three days a week and trying to run the Liver Foundation at the same time.” Wife #4 commented. “That’s too much even for you.”
Wife #6 broke in, “You are all forgetting that she had big spine surgery a year ago.”
But Wife #5 had the best comment of all. “Screw all that,” she said. “I mean, it’s all true. Anne needs to learn to say no. But we all work ourselves silly cleaning and cooking and carpooling and we deserve a break and we should not feel guilty for sitting down or taking a nap or even spending the whole damn day in the bed every once in a while.”
We toasted to that, and then discussed the difficulties of dating when you are nearly 40.
Don’t get the wrong impression. It wasn’t an Oprah-fest the whole time. Sometimes it was more like Coffee Talk, from the old Saturday Night Live shows. We discussed the time my friend got caught impersonating her sister at an uptight beauty salon. (She’d missed the two appointments she’d made under her own name. The salon made it clear she wasn’t welcome at their chic establishment. Desperate to have her eyebrows dyed, she made a third appointment under her sister’s name, which she managed to keep. She was doing fine until she was loudly recognized by a former classmate who called her by her correct name while the receptionist snickered). And we had a marvelous time making fun of the lawyer in town who is famous for billing 28 hours out of every 24. (He masquerades as an evangelical Christian everywhere but on his time sheets).
With seven people talking, you do a lot of listening. And all that listening made me realize that we’re all struggling. I have to deal with my medical problems. My friends each have their own challenges. But you know what? We’re each dealing with them the best we can. And I don’t think any of us would trade our own problems for someone else’s.
So I think the reason we had such a wonderful week was because we essentially participated in a rare, much-needed group therapy session. All the ladies had a chance to air their dirty laundry, then fold it back up and take it home a little bit fresher.
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March 30th, 2005 at 6:53 pm, Alex Says:
Great post. Why is it that only kids get splinters, but never adults? I don’t think I’ve had a splinter in 10 years, but I used to get them all the time as a kid.
March 30th, 2005 at 7:01 pm, Carmen Says:
That sounds wonderful. My favorite type of vacation. I’ve had a few like that, and they are never long enough.
I’m glad you are back!!
April 4th, 2005 at 8:09 pm, Busy Mom Says:
Sounds like a wonderful time!
April 5th, 2005 at 5:10 pm, Cindy Says:
Okay, so when is the next lake trip? I loved reliving it all over again! And…after the “Olive Oil Splinter Treatment” little sister is splinter free! You should patent that treatment - it obviously works!
April 6th, 2005 at 12:02 pm, Single Male Almost 40...... Says:
I think I posted my comment with the wrong story….so,
I want to know more about what the women, better yet, the “single moms”, thought about dating when 40 is approaching. Maybe expand on your “lake conversations”. Hey, that sounds like a story? Don’t forget to protect the age and the innocent!
January 19th, 2007 at 6:35 pm, My Tiny Kingdom » Safari Away Says:
[...] Additionally, I’ll be missing the boys’ spring break. We never do anything fancy, but our tradition of gathering all of my lady friends who are staying in town along with their kids and heading to the lake is a special one. I wrote about last year’s trip here. Spring break is the time I hang out with the boys and just relax. I always treasure it. [...]