Mar 31, 2010

Time For Vacation?

We don't do vacation much in this family. No money is the obvious primary reason. And then there are the other reasons. Between the exhaustion of getting ready to go and the exhaustion of returning and going back to work it hardly ever seems worth it. How much rest can you get with 3 kids who require intense supervision, no money and a cooler full of food you still have to prepare because you have no money to eat out on vacation? I mean as Dirty Harry said, " A man's got to know his limitations." Having said that I am planning a spring break vacation next week to visit the artist and her other half, "the tall man" for a few days because I just never seem to learn. They live 3 hours from here. The teenager has it locked in her brain that she must go bowling in that particular city. The boy wants to "hang with" the tall man for some "guy time." Where do children learn to talk this way? Last time we visited the tall man took the boy driving on the beach in his "off road vehicle." That phrase is repeated by the teenager at least 10 times a day as we drive to and fro ever since she learned it. Off road vehicle. Off road vehicle. Off road vehicle.The tall man was, by report, a horrible, mischievous, hyperactive child. Years later he has turned into a very nice, mischievous, hyperactive man. The boy and the tall man are quite the combination when together but in all honesty if Atilla the Hun showed up at my front door and wanted to hang with the boy for some guy time I would gladly oblige if it bought me even 15 minutes of peace. The boy's teacher told me this week the entire class has been squirrely because they are tired. At this point I wanted to shout, WHAT ABOUT ME ME ME ME ME? Unfortunately, I would sound too much like my children so I suppressed the urge. I won't even go into the baby's sleep disorder and how vacations seem to exacerbate the symptoms. As I'm writing this my right eye is swollen to a slit and my vision has decreased from 20/20 to around 20/60. When I was doing the eye chart yesterday at the emergency walk in clinic the ARNP informed me, "when you say E?, G?, blah, blah, something, something, C?, during an eye test you should probably move up a line until you can actually read it." The eye could be connected to some tests I had in December that came back positive for some kind of auto-immune disease. The ARNP who is also a friend, wanted to repeat them in 3 months after my hideous joint flare up subsided hoping it was just a bursitis fluke. So Friday I find out if I am heading off to a rheumatologist to be diagnosed with Rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus, Sarcoidosis.....In other words, something to look forward to. Like vacation.

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