Vacation Victory

One of the challenges of vacation is coordinating efforts between two full-time parents.  You'd think it's easier with two parents home all day.  If so, you would be wrong.  The minute one parent sees the other he or she immediately thinks, "Freedom!"  Obviously, both parents can't be free of responsibility at the same time, nor can one parent shoulder all of the burden.  It is neither fair for the mom to have the dad take his turn as the stay-at-home parent nor for the dad to expect to be uninvolved for eight hours as if it were a regular work day.  Figuring this out took up the first day of our vacation.  Once we did, we felt that each day was victorious.  We had a game plan that allowed us to enjoy our extended family, our kids, and each other each day.  At the end of each day, we felt we'd achieved an important victory.  Miraculously, our vacation on the road was relatively stress free and a lot of fun.