The UnInstagramable Moments from Family Vacations

Last week at this time I was lounging on the beach in Aruba. OK, lounging may not be the appropriate word, more like applying sunscreen, shouting not to go out too deep, keeping the baby busy and reapplying more sunscreen. It was wonderful and if you follow me on Instagram you got to see some of my favorite little moments. I love using Instagram and Instagram stories to capture and share but there were many, many moments that didn’t make the highlights reel.

The Uninstagrammable Moments from Family Vacation

When we got to the airport the power was mostly out at the American Airlines terminal and for some reason the computer messed up the seating and instead of my family sitting together in the seats I had paid $60 extra each, my 6-year-old was seated by himself, 8 rows behind us. The airline basically said, “tough luck” no matter how much my husband and I nicely pleaded. Luckily the nice couple next to John volunteered to switch after he sold them on the extra leg room in the row I had purchased.

When we got our gate and finally sat down to eat, John took Jack to the bathroom and the urinal decided to fire back at him, covering his sweatshirt in pee.

We left during a snowstorm and spent an hour and half on the runway waiting to take off. That was an extra hour and a half that we had to entertain two kids on the plane. An hour and a half that the baby choose to cry and a lovely flight attendant named Monica offered to carry her around the plane since we had to remain seated.

I’m an anxious flyer. I’m a have a drink before I board the plane flyer, but we had such a hard time getting through the airport that there was barely time to eat let alone have a nerve chilling drink. Then we had 2 hours of turbulence, that had me saying prayers and trying not to lose my cool. When they finally turned off the seat belt sign I had John order me a rum and coke.

If having to change a babies diaper in an airport bathroom isn’t bad enough, try getting locked in the bathroom with the baby.

Night 1 Grace was up at 3:30 and would not go back to sleep. Jack was up by 6 every day, most nights no one slept through the night.

Grace had a cold and I while trying to get her to sleep the first night, I put her in my Ergo carrier and turned the shower on and paced the bathroom till she finally fell asleep. Then I sat in bed with her strapped into the carrier, as soon as I tried to move her, she woke up.

Both of my kids were troopers most of the week but late nights, early mornings, long days on the beach and too much sugar definitely led to some meltdown and unexplained tears and trying to console a baby who screamed every time we put her in the car seat.

There was a rainy day when we raced into a bar and everyone welcomed us with smiles and I kept saying, “you have a baby in a bar”. There were early mornings where the moon was up and so were we. There was an outing that was canceled after a diaper mishap that left the car seat and the stroller unusable. But mostly there was laughter and memories and John and I smiling at each other or fist bumping after making it through a rough flight. Traveling with kids is a lot of work but it’s worth it.

I wanted to share some of these moments because I realize seeing the perfect moments of vacation makes it look like traveling with kids is easy and that is so, very far from the truth. I had this in mind while I was away and in the coming weeks I’m going to be sharing my tips for traveling with kids every Tuesday here on the blog.