Brady and the terrible, horrible, very bad, no good vacation

So we'd had a vacation planned to Table Rock for 9+ months. It was for the week after the 4th of July. I was stoked!! Ecstatic!!! SO ready to get away from home and work. Let me just give you a quick outline of how our vacation went...........

Monday--worked all day. We were planning to leave Tuesday after work so the kids could stay awake for a few hours on the ride down, we would stop and eat, then they would fall asleep and sleep until we got there. Perfect plan.....Waiting anxiously for Tuesday to come.

Tuesday (7/9)--wake up at 6:15am to hear Tommy saying, "Mommy!! Mooooooooommmmmyyy!" Go in their room to see Tessa crying and rolling around. Pick her up and she starts vomiting. Quickly set her back down so all her vomit is contained on her crib sheet. She stops. Pick her back up to comfort her and she hurls again. Repeat above steps about 6 times. She finally stops gagging when I pick up her. Get bed cleaned and Tessa cleaned. Call Brooke to see if she can come to our house so she can meet us at the doctor later that day and so Tommy and Tessa can keep sleeping. Praise God when she says yes! Go to work. Wait for my doctor's office to open so I can schedule appt. Try to work while worrying about my kid and how we're getting her to the appt. Leave work early to help with transportation, medication administration, vomit patrol, etc. The doctor said it was a virus (shocker) and it would most likely be gone in 24 hours. We decide to head to Table Rock because she's acting better.

I should've known to turn around as soon as I saw her giving me this look from the back seat.

We leave around 4:30pm. Kids fall asleep quickly and sleep 2 hours. We stop for dinner at Babe's......

.....(which was not as good as it looks) and eat hamburgers while Tessa cries and clings to me like I'm going to abandon  her any moment. Finish our drive and get checked in to the resort. Get the kids to sleep. Tessa starts fussing and pukes all over one of the beds. Office is closed, so can't get clean sheets. I fall asleep in one full size bed with both kids on top of the comforter since our sheets are covered in Tessa's lunch. Finally get to sleep.

 

Don't let them fool you. They're not as innocent as they look!

Wednesday (7/10)--wake up around 8am. I revel in the fact that nobody is puking. Eat breakfast and head over to Grandma and Papa's camper so we can leave the cling-on with Grandma and me, Daddy, Papa and Tommy can head out on the boat. Tommy loves it!

Don't be scared of his grimace....that's actually his, "Say cheese!" face.....we're working on it!
We get 3 hours of time on the water with no whining or clinging. Grandma reassures us Tessa is sleeping and fever is under control. She actually slept like this.........

....for about 30 minutes. THAT'S how exhausted she was. Get both kids back to our room at the resort for lunch and naps. Realize Tommy has a HORRIBLE diaper rash and he screams and thrashes every time we try to wipe or change him. Spend 30 minutes trying to rationalize with a toddler that if we can wipe the yuckies off, it won't hurt so bad. He screams, "Don't wipe me!! Don't wipe me!!" Finally get everyone to sleep for a nap.  Head over to Grandma and Papa's camper again to have dinner. I'm optimistic it will be a good, calm evening. Tessa is still acting like we're Siamese twins. My usually happy-go-lucky girl is the grumpiest grouch on the planet. I end up holding her during my whole dinner, but it's tacos (my fave) so I'm able to enjoy it anyways. Head back to the resort and get both kids to bed. Tommy wakes up no less than 4 times because he has diarrhea and needs changed, but he's screaming in pain because his diaper rash hurts so bad. We (of course) have no diaper cream because neither of our kids has ever had a diaper rash. Spend 5-10 minutes with each diaper change trying not to get poop on anything and trying not to hurt Tommy while we clean him up. Sleep MAYBE 4 hours.......maybe

Thursday (7/11)--Daddy leaves early to go buy diaper cream for Tommy. Then they go to Papa's to hang out with him on the boat. I am left in the little, tiny resort room with Grumpy Gracie. Discover she's actually cutting FOUR teeth while recovering from her viral infection. Perfect. Start to feel a little bad for being so annoyed about her clinginess and grumpiness. She continues to whine and cling all morning while we wait for Whitney to come visit us. Whitney shows up and I feel a little like kissing her because it means I'm not alone with my daughter anymore (mom of the year, I know. Don't judge. You weren't there). We take Tessa out to swim in the pool while we wait for Nick and Tommy to bring the car back so we can go shopping. Tessa actually smiles for the full 45 minutes we're in the pool.

 The boys FINALLY bring the car back around 1:30pm. They lay down for a nap and we head out to go shop! I find the perfect shirt for family pictures and Grumpy Gus has layed off the grumpiness. I start to get optimistic about the vacation. We head back to the resort and over to Grandma and Papa's again for dinner. Tessa resumes her clinginess, so I once again eat dinner with her on my lap. After about 3 bites of my hamburger, I notice a bodily fluid running down my leg. It is not MY bodily fluid. I'm confused for about 30 seconds and then realize Tessa has blown diarrhea out of her diaper and all over me. Awesome. Icing on the cake, folks. Runny, brown icing. I try not to throw up or make everyone else at the dinner table throw up. Get Tessa changed and the carpet cleaned (sorry Grandma and Papa!!). Leave her at the camper while I drive back to our resort room to change clothes. Change and get back to the camper only to find out Tommy has also pooped through his shorts. Get Tommy and Tessa BOTH changed. Wonder how my life came to revolve around so much vomit and diarrhea. Praise God that Tommy's cousins have to shown up to entertain him!

 Try to enjoy the cherry cobbler that was made for dessert but end up holding Tessa (betcha didn't see that comin, did ya?) and throw a miniature fit about not being able to do anything without toting around a 20 pound tooth-growing, viral infection,-having, diarrhea exploding baby on my lap. But I try to get over it because I chose to be a mom and she is ultimately one of the 3 best things I've ever done in my life. Forgo the cherry cobbler (my hips thanked me) and head back to our room to try to sleep. Repeat the process of the previous night--waking up every hour to change Tommy while trying to keep him from screaming, "No, Mommy! NOOOOO!" making the neighbors think we're abusing our child. Get another 4 (unconsecutive) hours of sleep.

Friday (7/11)--Wake up around 8am. There is no vomit, no fever and no dirty diapers on either of my children. I thank God and pray that the day goes better then the rest. We decide it's FINALLY okay for Tessa to ride on the boat. She appears to be semi-happy again!

We rented a pontoon boat so we'd have that and Grandma and papa's boat. Spend the first three hours on the speed boat holding Tessa while others tube and swim. Get on the pontoon boat for lunch and try to let Tessa walk around a little bit. She wasn't having it. Can you believe she only wanted to eat lunch on my lap?! Get the kids and ourselves fed............and then it happened. Tessa's aunt Christi became the most amazing person on earth. She insisted that she hold Tessa while I tube with my nieces. She said the most beautiful words......"You go have fun. I'll hold her and if she cries, she cries." I didn't stick around to ask twice :) I tubed for the next hour with both of my nieces and got to enjoy conversation with them. It was the best part of my vacation!! A full hour of no crying, no whining, no clinging!! I don't know if I've ever been that grateful in my life! And guess what. She cried for a minute and then fell asleep. She was fine! I think we both needed that hour away from each other! After tubing, we spent the next few hours pulling other people on the tube and stopping to swim. It was nice. Tessa seemed to relax a little after her nap with Aunt Christi. She was good while we ate dinner at the marina. She was REAAAAALY digging the ranch.

Neither her or Tommy pooped on anybody the whole evening! At that point, I considered that a huge accomplishment. After dinner, we headed back to our room and got the kids to sleep early--SCORE! I think they both slept through the whole night that night.

Saturday (7/12)--Our "vacation" is over. Daddy and Tommy got up early but the boat wasn't working, so they came back to the room when me and Tessa got up. Tessa was a little whiny, but not as bad as she had been. Tommy's diaper rash was mostly gone. I am grateful but can't help thinking that of COURSE everything gets better the day we're leaving. But that's okay. We check out of the resort and meet everyone for lunch. Tessa charms everyone with her dimple and giggle that nobody has gotten to see all week. Tommy and his cousin "Mackie" (as he calls her) stay entertained with my phone. Lunch is like a dream. I start getting sad that we're leaving. We head home around 1pm. Tommy and Tessa both fall asleep for almost 3 hours. They wake up happy as can be. We only have to pull over to change ONE poopy diaper--a miracle! They are angels for the entire drive. We pull up to the house and they get out laughing and running around like we didn't just spend 4 days cooped up in a tiny room with a teething baby and exploding bottom end of a toddler. I start to wonder if they were plotting against me and Nick.

I can't say I'll ever consider this one of our best vacations. I was really excited to travel with Tess because it was her first time going anywhere and she's normally so good-natured. That dream was dashed :) I think I'll at least be able to laugh about it sometime soon. I think the whole trip can be summed up in two words: puke. diarrhea.  Yup. That's it! Overall, I'm grateful that we got to spend time with family and relax a LITTLE bit. But I don't think we'll be going again any time soon!