You Know You’re A Parent Leaving For Vacation When….

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You know you’re a parent leaving for vacation when you realize you’ve done everyone’s laundry but your own. Hello, my name is Maria and I’m leaving for vacation soon and I haven’t done my laundry.  Everyone else will have clean underwear, but mine will be questionable.  Such is mom life.  

you know you're a parent whenYou know you’re a parent leaving for vacation when instead of checking to see what time happy hour is you make sure you’re available for story time. Gone are the days of cocktails and tapas after a nice nap.  Now your itinerary is scheduled around nap time and fun “kid-things” they have at the hotel.  But at least the idea of a nap is still included, right?

You know you’re a parent leaving for vacation when your carry-on is no longer filled with precious make-up you don’t want to have stolen, but rather diapers, diaper cream, wipes, and antifungal cream.  Oh at this point in life you don’t even care about make-up.  Who has time?!  If you packed mascara you’re good to go.  But if you forget the diapers or the diaper cream and GOD FORBID YOU FORGET WIPES, vacation will basically be ruined.  

You know you’re a parent leaving for vacation when you have heated debates on whether to bring your own car seat or risk renting one from the car rental place.  Raise your hand if you’ve ever had this debate!  ??? Guilty!  Like, it is so much easier to just rent one, but then you just never know what you’re going to get.  And also it’s pricey!  But then, you’ve actually witnessed car seats flying off of those luggage transporters at the airport onto the tarmac – which basically means you have to rent a car seat upon arrival AND buy a new one when you land because you can’t leave the airport without your car seat!  

You know you’re a parent leaving for vacation when you actually believe vacationing with your children is going to be fun.  We’ve all been guilty of this one.  We have all made ourselves actually believe that going on vacation with our children is going to be fun.  They are going to be so appreciative of all that we have shown them.  They will awe in wonder at the sights.  They will love the cultural differences.  It will be amazing!!  But then the plane takes off and your child vomits on you and the single guy sitting next to you and now you all smell like vomit for the foreseeable future.  

You know you’re a parent returning home from vacation when you scroll through your photos and realize you’re in none of them. Not. One. Single. Picture.  It’s like you weren’t even there.  In fact, when you get older your kids will probably ask you if you were there.  Parenting.