Vacation Expectations

We all embark on with certain expectations, usually unspoken, that we think will add up to us having a good time. A couple days into our week at the beach with our two young children, it quickly became clear that I had to let go of my preconceived notions of what makes a family vacation fun.

Heading to the Outer Banks for a week, I had it in the back of my mind that our getaway would involve daily morning trips to the beach after breakfast for fun in the sun, building sandcastles, sorting seashells and splashing in the waves. That all turned out to be fun on day one, but by the second day, the kids (ages 3 ½ and 15 months) were kind of bored and sullen with my idea of the best beach day ever.

I pictured us returning from the beach for lunch followed by a nap, which both kids would take at the same time. Well, that happened exactly once during our week away. My son is younger and still needs two naps a day, while my daughter takes one long nap in the afternoon. It seemed like whenever one kid was napping, the other was awake, which made it rather difficult to plan any outings; I planned our souvenir shopping trip for our one rainy morning but the baby squashed my plans by going down for his morning nap just as the rest of us were finally ready to head out the door.

Nothing went exactly according to plan, and it seems like with children as young as mine, having some structure in place usually makes everything run smoother. But the thing is, we have had a great time here at the beach this week. Not everything went according to my preconceived notions, but the flipside to that is that my children got to spend some relaxing and unprogrammed time with their aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa and great aunt – and even us parents who they see every day – that wouldn’t have unfolded in the same way if my not-so-perfect plans came through.