Play and Vacation

We just returned from a spring break adventure in Cancùn, Mexico. There were 3 bouts of the stomach flu, 7 misguided hours in a timeshare presentation, 4 rescheduled excursions and 2 sunburned peeling backs. It was awesome.

I have a deep belief in the necessity of family vacations whether they be thousands of miles away or camping in the backyard. I take irritating delight in things that go wrong on vacation because I know those are the stories that will be told for years. My best and most vivid childhood memories come from the backseat of a car with my sister driving across the United States and Europe.

It is always so hard to get away. My husband and I both have demanding jobs and limited vacation weeks. My daughters have sports and activities that require they are home. It is a total hassle to find someone to watch the dog, feed the chickens and water the plants. One of my daughters, ever a homebody, cried to go home every night of vacation until she was 10.

But it is incalculably valuable to be each other’s only companions for a week or more. It is a gift to be somewhere where there is no cell service and we are forced to talk and play with each other. As much as I steal every moment I can with a book in the beach chair, my girls were never forget the spectacular (and unintentional) dive into the cenote I took from the zipline yesterday.

Play does not come easy to me but I believe every inch of it that I give my children is investing in some invisible bank account of relational capital that we will draw on for years to come.