Day: April 5, 2007

Our last two or three major road trip have all included vomit in the car. Usually we manage to bring the flu with us and generously give it away to all my relatives. I think I might change our family name to Vector. We’ll be the Vectors. When Patches came down with flu 10 days prior to our Seattle departure, I considered it inevitable. I was actually a little glad. Perhaps this time we’d be done with the vomiting before the trip. But just in case I packed a bucket in the car.

That did seem to be the case. One by one the flu mowed my children flat. One by one they got better. Then we left for our trip. On the day we left, I honestly thought we were all better. I did not think that anyone was still contagious. Then we arrived in Boise and I realized that I was not feeling well. Nor was Howard. And Link was still running to the bathroom a lot. Apparently I was in contagion denial. By the time we left Boise, we were all well. Unfortunately within 8 hours of our departure my sister’s entire family was mowed flat by the flu. They were still recovering on the following Monday and we decided to drive straight home rather than risk re-infection. Also my sister sounded so tired on the phone and I didn’t want to give her any more work.

I feel guilty about making them all sick. I’m tired of bringing new and exciting illnesses to give to my relatives. But I’m really glad that none of us were sick during our stay in Seattle. We enjoyed the trip. And the just-in-case bucket was not used once.

My kids have been excited about the trip to Seattle for more than a month. They announced “We’re going to Seattle!” to anyone who would listen. But for all their anticipation, they really had no idea what to expect. When we arrived at the Strohl house, Patches and Gleek’s fondest dreams were realized. There were kids to play with and new toys and a dog and cats. Kiki’s joy was focused on the dog and a promised dip in the hot tub. Link got out of the car and found himself faced with a strange house full of strange people, cats which would make him wheeze, and a large, friendly, bouncing dog. Link wanted to get back into the car and drive back to Boise.

The next hour for Link was filled with fear and anxiety. He shut himself into one of the downstairs rooms and lay on the floor crying quiet tears. He’d been so looking forward to the trip and now he’d arrived and it was full of worrisome things. At first I did not realize what Link was doing. I was busy talking with the Strohls and getting settled. Then I looked around and only found three of my four kids. The Strohls, wonderful hosts that they are, took the dog to go stay at a neighbor’s house for awhile. I carried Link upstairs and sat him on my lap. I didn’t force him to talk to anyone. I didn’t try to make him happy. I didn’t try to show him all the cool things about the house. I just required him to sit where he could begin to acclimate rather than huddling and feeling miserable. Within 15 minutes Link was starting to feel comfortable. Within an hour he was down on the floor playing Legos with the Strohl’s son. The next morning we reintroduced the dog, which gave Link a little renewed anxiety, but not much. He had another moment of anxiety when we returned to the Strohls after two days in a hotel. But over all he adapted well and once he was comfortable he had a great time.

Watching Link’s anxiety and helping him overcome it made me realize that Link doesn’t get exposed to new experiences as often as he should. He is content to play at home or with a few familiar friends. He makes friends slowly as people become familiar. Most of our trips involve staying with relatives. Link’s whole life keeps him in a comfort zone. When he is forced outside that comfort zone, he reacts with fear and anxiety. The world is not always going to provide him with comfortable experiences. If I do not teach him how to deal with things that make him anxious, I will have failed him as a parent. I need to consciously expose Link to things which will be good for him, but which he doesn’t necessarily want to do. I need to choose these experiences carefully. The important thing is to teach him how to deal with anxiety and fear, not to make him miserable. We’ll be taking another family trip to new places, possibly next year. That is good, but I also need to provide smaller experiences here at home. I’ll have to do some thinking to figure out what they might be.

We arrived at my sister’s house in Boise on Monday March 26. My sister’s house is a familiar and comfortable place. The kids all disappeared to play with cousins and I had leisure to look around at the things my sister has changed since I was last there. She has done quite a bit of re-decorating. Her front room in particular has taken on a very comfortable and finished feel. I noted in particular how most of her wall decorations were things other than framed pictures. She had candle holders and floral arrangements and wire artworks. I really like that. Now I want to do more with my walls than just hang framed pictures on them.

Then on Wednesday March 28 we arrived in Seattle. The Strohl’s house is beautiful. Every room was clean and had objects in it whose only purpose was to add beauty to the room. But the house was also definitely arranged for people and kids to live in. I did not feel like I had to carefully not touch anything. Donna also had candle holders and wire things on her walls. The guest room where we stayed had a canopied bed and a little table and chairs with a fountain trickling quietly in one corner. It was like a peaceful little sanctuary. Several times during the visit I retreated down there to just sit and soak up the tranquility. A chorus of frogs sang outside my window only adding to the beauty of the place.

I sat in that place and thought about my house. My house isn’t beautiful. It has some beautiful things in it, but mostly the house itself is a container for my things. I realized that I want my house to be a Place. I want it to have character. The only way for it to acquire that is for me to put some time and effort into making it beautiful. I need to do some remodeling. Nothing major, just repainting and adding small touches here and there. Also I need to do some cleaning. I realized that if I’ll just scrub things a little more often, that will go a long way toward making my house more beautiful. I made plans to start on the scrubbing as soon as I got home and to evaluate how much money we can afford to put toward home improvement projects.

Then on Tuesday April 3 at 2 am I arrived home. I walked in the front door and was greeted by warmth and the smell of home. The surroundings were uncluttered because I’d picked up before we left and I was able to settle into this place that is mine. Being home again made me realize that my home is not ugly. It is a little worn and needs some renewal, but it is a good house with potential to be a wonderful house. I still remember having a delivery guy glance in our front room and ask if we are artistic people because our front room seemed artistic. I like that. I want my home to tell about me. I want my home to be welcoming and comfortable and beautiful. And like anything else, I’ll only achieve that as far as I’m willing to put in some work to make it happen.

Since our return from Seattle on Tuesday I have been asked “how was your trip?” more times than I’ve bothered to count. Usually that question is immediately followed by “Did you have fun?” These questions seem easy to answer, but they’re not. How was my trip? Did I have fun? Well there was definitely some fun involved, but I can’t say the whole trip was an unmitigated delight. I could have done without getting lost 3 of the 4 times I drove in the Seattle area. I learned a lot the challenges of combining a family vacation with a business trip. Some things worked other things didn’t. The kids and I got to go new places and see things we’d never seen before. Seeing those places with my kids was really good, but it was a very different experience from going by myself. This trip was not often relaxing, but it was definitely a good thing to do. I fully intend to do “vacation to new places” again, although I think next time I’ll arrange for Howard to be on vacation too. He worked the convention all weekend.

All the places we went and things that we saw sparked a bazillion thoughts in my brain. There were many blogworthy ideas and events. Thus far I haven’t blogged any of them, but I took notes and over the next week or so I’m hoping to go through them all and get the entries written. I’ve discovered that I really need mental space to process my experiences and to write about them. During the whole trip to Seattle I ran from event to event until I crashed into bed at night. Even in the times that I scheduled as “down times” for the kids, I was still on duty watching to make sure that kids didn’t drown in the hotel swimming pool or squabble over property rights. It wasn’t until the long drive home that my brain was able to process all the things that happened. I drifted half asleep while my mind wandered then I’d wake up and make notes about my brain wanderings. Then I’d drift some more, then write more notes.

Upon my arrival home I had to unpack everything and re-settle us all into being at home. That was Tuesday. Yesterday I had to spend all day catching up on accounting and the quarterly financial reports required by the state and federal governments. Today I am going to do some spring cleaning and I’m going to do some blogging. Fortunately the spring cleaning keeps my hands busy, but allows my brain space to roam and compose entries. So the two things should go well together. Perhaps when I’m done writing all the entries I’ll finally have a concise answer for “How was your trip?”