We have been busy making our plans to go to Northern VA for Colin's Spring Break. It has been a busy last few days between stress at Dennis' work, me trying to plan my sister in law's shower, and having to make a bunch of decisions for the basement. Put all that on top of the day to day activity of 3 little boys and you can imagine its been a little stressful around here.
As if all that weren't enough, we are dealing with the stress of trying to make so many different people happy during our quick trip to Northern VA. We started planning out of trip early so that we can see everyone we want to see and those who want to see us. But, 4 days to try to see two large families and a bunch a friends is not easy. I told Dennis that we are going to have to limit friends to those we didn't see at Christmas, because there is just too many people to see. We also have to have time for me to host a baby shower Saturday, which means prepping the food the night before, getting the games ready, etc... The shower being the main reason we are coming to town.
It is frustrating for me because nobody else in either of our families is really in our situation, where we have a family (3 little boys at that), and live far away. Every time we come to town we have to take off work (which is part of the reason I can't work full or part time, I wouldn't get that much time off in health care), we have to spend a lot of money, and we have to deal with going to a bunch of different places with 3 little boys in tow. Boys who aren't sleeping in their own beds, so they go to bed late and wake up early and sometimes don't get a nap. It is frustrating for me that most people don't realize how hard it is for us to be in VA for every holiday and never get to have our kids be rested and waking up in their own house for the holidays. Our holidays are never relaxing, it always involves travel. I am willing to go out of our way to get back to VA, because I want my kids to have relationships with their cousins and other extended family members, but it isn't easy and it makes it even harder when not everyone gets what we go through.
Dennis didn't even want to go back for Spring Break. For him he can look in black and white, "it is inconvenient so therefore I don't want to go" or "if someone doesn't act like they want to see us, then screw them why should we go out of our way". The plan was for me to go by myself, but I didn't think that was fair to the kids to not see some family until Thanksgiving or maybe even Christmas. And I don't think I could handle 3 kids in the car by myself for 10 1/2 hours or on a plane. I don't want to raise my kids where they only see family once a year or less. But, sometimes I wish I had Dennis' attitude of if someone can't understand then too bad for them, maybe we will catch them next time. I try too hard to accommodate everyone and make everyone happy and it causes me a lot of anxiety when someone gets their feelings hurt or thinks we aren't being flexible enough or gets mad at us for some other silly reason. It is hard to be the only ones who are ever inconvenienced or having to go out of our way for others. Others who don't even seem to appreciate our efforts and aren't willing to bend a little themselves.
Many of the people here that live far from family have similar attitudes as Dennis, they chose to just stay in Indiana and if someone wants to see them they can come visit. I am smart enough to know that if we did that, we would spend every holiday and vacation alone and nobody would visit. After all, who would want to be away from home for the holidays? It is expensive to travel and if you have a little kids it is also pretty inconvenient to get a whole family to Indiana from VA. Believe me, we get it. I get that it was our choice to move away and therefor it falls on us to make the flight or drive, but I wish others would realize what we go through and be more understanding and appreciative of us visiting. Otherwise, it puts a huge damper on what should be a fun trip.
I could go on and on, but with two kids turning my house upside down as I write and the basement people causing a bunch of dust, I better go clean up or I will just have to add to all the things on my list that need to be done and that are causing me anxiety these days. Dennis jokes with me all the time that he is going to out live me, and I have no doubt that he is right. I am no good at handling all this stress and he is able to shrug it all off. Right now, I'm really wishing I was more like my husband.
And that's all I've got for today. As Evan told his swim class and lifeguard today..."Peace Out Colorado Swimmers"! Next time I promise a happier blog post...
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