Facation

Whew, haven't blogged in a while. That's because I was on facation!!

This year, we decided not to go on our regular summer vacation trip to Ocean City. We decided not to go on vacation period. We knew we'd have five kids and that money would be tight. Back in January, we decided that we wouldn't go away this summer. In January, all I could think about was having the baby in February, so not going on vacation didn't seem like a big deal - at the time. Once summer hit, I wished we could go to the beach. But we knew that it would mean spending a ton of money we didn't have, and that it would be stressful with five kids. Even with only four kids last year, we had to split up most of the time. One of us would stay at the condo with the napping kids, while the other one would take the other kids to the pool. We basically do the same thing at home. Buster still had time to take off of work, so he took vacation time for a week, and we had a facation.

He was off for ten days, and before his time off, we had all kinds of big plans for when he was home. We were going to fix some things around the house. We were going to take a few day trips with the kids. We were going to go to the pool every day. During the second half of the vacation time, we had a lot of doctor appointments scheduled, that were best to get done while he was home. Superchunk had an appointment with the ENT to get his tongue clipped because he was tongue tied. Side note - I was super proud of myself for taking him and watching. He was great, and it literally took less than a minute. We are incredibly lucky because this was our first experience with ever needing a specialist or needing to have any type of procedure done to any of the kids. I thought about pushing it off onto Buster, but I sucked up my anxiety so that I could be there with my baby.  After that we also had yearly checkups for both Trouble and Pirate, and Trouble had his first dentist appointment. Luckily, no one needed shots! We got both of their health forms for school filled out and dropped off at their schools, so I don't have that hanging over my head anymore. Aside from these appointments, we didn't really have any set plans. We just had a bunch of stuff we wanted to do with the kids.

Buster got home from work around 1pm on July 12. I was working on lunches for the kids. They were whining, and they jumped all over Buster as soon as he got home. I think he was ready to go back to work about 20 minutes later! We decided that since we weren't going away, we were going to pretend to be away for the whole vacation. At first we were calling it Stay-Cation, since Buster was off but we were staying home. But then we decided to call it Facation, since we were faking our vacation at the beach. No one else may find it funny, but we laughed about it all week. After naps on Thursday, I took Trouble to the pool by himself to spend some quality time together, and to reward him for pooping on the potty regularly. Any time we went to the pool, it was the equivalent of the pool at the beach. Friday we slept in and relaxed during the day. After dinner, we took all of the kids for a walk to the playground at Princess's school. That was the same as when we take evening walks at the beach, only there was no beach. Right now it is only a little over a week later, and I honestly can't remember exactly what we did last weekend. I know we sat outside and had drinks Saturday night, like when we sit on the balcony of our condo at the beach. The more we drank, the more we pretended things were the same as Ocean City.

Sunday, Buster took the kids to the pool for a little while. By the evening, I wasn't feeling well. I've been fighting this ear infection since the beginning of July. I took ear drops for over a week, felt better, then it came back. Sunday night I felt out of it. Monday I called the doctor, but they couldn't see me until Tuesday. Monday afternoon I took Curly to the pool with my sister and my nephew, and we hung out at the baby pool for a while. By the way, the baby pool is not a babysitter for your kids, people! I hate when people just let their kids go into the baby pool without watching them. It is still water, and your kid could still fall under and drown. At the same time, don't let your kids steal my kids' toys. I don't care if they play with them, but don't pack them up in your bag and pretend like you didn't notice it wasn't yours. That's why my name is on my toys. There is a reason I don't take all 5 kids to the pool... because I couldn't handle them all on my own. I'm not going to pawn them off onto everyone else in the baby pool so I can lay on my stomach and tan myself with my head covered, or sit at the snack bar where I can't possibly see my kids. I apologize for the pool rant!  Monday evening we took the kids to a park nearby which we refer to as the Duck Pond. We checked out the ducks and spent a long time on the swings and the playground. There is a park on the bay in Ocean City that we go to every year during our vacation, so that was our beach equivalent.

Tuesday morning I went to the doctor for my ears, which turned out to be my ears, sinuses, chest, and a whole mess of other stuff. Turned out that going to Urgent Care on July 1 was a waste of money because they just treated me for what I thought I had, not really looking to see what the cause was. After spending the morning at the doctor and waiting at the pharmacy for meds, I was exhausted and had 75 pills to take. Taking all the medicine together made me feel dizzy, so I was able to squeeze in a little nap while Buster had the older three kids at the pool. I usually love getting a pool day, especially during the week. This sickness has made things unenjoyable this whole month. Right before dinner Tuesday evening, our lights flickered. The day before we heard a transformer blow nearby, and we thought maybe we were getting some kind of aftermath from that. Later on, we sat down to watch our evening show with the kids. Buster went upstairs to check the thermostat because he thought it felt a little warm in the living room. Then he disappeared into the laundry room to check the a/c unit. We just spent a butt load of money getting our indoor unit fixed at the beginning of June, so I was praying there was nothing wrong with it. Buster checked outside and that part of the unit wasn't working. The a/c company couldn't come out until the next morning. It was 7:30 in the evening and 94 degrees outside. The inside temperature was climbing. That night was the most miserable night we have spent in the longest time. Buster, Pirate, and Trouble slept in the basement. He said the boys were up and down all night - couch to floor to chair to sleeping bag. I slept in my room so that I could hear the babies in their cribs. We had a fan on each crib, one on my bed, and two in the basement, along with every window in the house open. Princess slept in my bed. Curly woke up every hour all night. I brought him in my bed a couple times, but he would just get all exited  and start jumping around. Superchunk slept all night with no problem at all. By the morning, we were all sweaty, exhausted, and just plain miserable. I took Superchunk to his ENT appointment, and when we got home, I saw the greatest sight ever... closed windows! Luckily it was a relatively inexpensive fix. The part was only $30, but the labor was $115 for a whopping ten minutes of work. But every penny was well worth it to not have to spend another night in hell.

Although me getting sick and the air conditioning breaking were nowhere in our plans for facation, we still equated them to being away. We've had to visit the doctor in OC on more than one occasion. And most years, something bad happens to us while we're there. One year the a/c in the place broke. Another year the place we picked was just plain gross. Last year, our car broke down and we had to get it towed and fixed while were away. We just have the best luck! Buster said that it was actually better we were home because the unit would have kept trying to run if we were away and it could have caused more serious damage.

Wednesday we were all so exhausted from the night before we just laid around the house and enjoyed the cool air. We headed over to the mall and ate lunch and let the kids get on a few rides. The whole time we joked about how we were at the boardwalk in OC on the rides. That night we all went to bed early to catch up from the night before.


Thursday morning, Pirate had a checkup and Trouble had a dentist appointment. I had scheduled them a half hour apart, thinking there would be plenty of time to get from one office to the next. The night before we thought we might be cutting it too close, so Buster took Trouble, Curly, and Princess to the dentist office, while I took Pirate and Superchunk to the doctor. Buster was done at the dentist in plenty of time for the doctor, so we swapped kids, and he stayed with Pirate for his checkup. I thought it was cute that he wanted to go to the appointments. He said he likes to take them when he can to get to see how they're doing. Bonus - Trouble loved the dentist! He came home and proudly showed off his bag of goodies with a new toothbrush and flossers. That afternoon, I went for a much needed and long overdue haircut. When I was done, I dropped off both Pirate and Trouble's health forms for their schools. Then Buster left for his night of Batman. He and his friend went to watch the entire trilogy. He got home at 4am. We didn't hear about the CO shooting until the next morning. My heart goes out to those affected by such a senseless tragedy. I just don't understand how things like this happen. It definitely made me hug my children tighter and pray hard for those families that lost loved ones.

Friday, I spent the entire day in bed. I felt awful. The doctor had told me that as the congestion broke up and started draining properly I could get pains in my head. Apparently a side effect of the steroid I was on was pain in my muscles. I felt sore and everything felt tender. It rained all day, which made laying in bed all day a little more bearable. I equated this to being on vacation with morning sickness both last year and the year before. At least this time I didn't have to go through an entire pregnancy afterward!  It also rained all day Saturday. We had family over Saturday night for a party. We had a great time, but everyone stayed up too late. Yesterday was another day where we just laid around.

In the end, we didn't go to any of the places we had planned on taking the kids. We didn't fix any of the things around the house we were going to fix. We didn't do very much at all. We weren't counting on me being sick or on the air conditioning breaking, which both contributed to us not doing much else. But we had a nice week of family time. Today everyone is missing Daddy!

wish we were here!