Taking a trip with the kids is nothing new for us – we’ve tried to fit some kind of real trip in to the kids’ schedule every year, as we try to keep things as ‘normal’ as we can, even in the situation. None of these really have been big ‘vacation-trip’ things like a lot of other families with children our kids’ ages do, though.
But, to every thing and all. We’ve decided to take the plunge and plan a real vacation-trip.
I mean, we’ve gone away for whole weeks before. We spent a week at the shore with my family, and we’ve gone away to the shore ourselves. And there was Williamsburg last summer. But… each of those had been carefully constructed, with us staying in a house or other larger accommodation, multiple bedrooms to separate us from the children and afford us the flexibility to deal with anything that crops up with the Monster’s behavior, including (if needed) ending the trip early and heading home. Everything’s been driving-distance to the house. This next one’s not.
We’re taking a cruise.
Now, granted, I’m still internally debating the sanity of this course of action. (I’ve been questioning my sanity for years, mostly regarding what made me think that children were a good idea at all as they’re now developing minds of their own, but… yeah.) But it comes down to a few things that my wife’s brought up – that if we don’t do it at some point, we’ll never do it. That we talk about taking larger/longer trips – like, Disney or abroad – and we need to figure out if the kids can handle it on something shorter first. That it’s been years since we’ve actually dealt with having to spend overnights in the same room as the Monster (the issue previously’s been mostly about how he ends up awake in the middle of the night and waking us up… and that R’s seemed to have coped okay over the last few trips sharing a room with him). So… yeah.
Plus, it helps that we’ll be doing it with Autism on the Seas, and therefore not quite alone on it. We took a tour with them a few months ago, and we’ve been looking for the right opportunity to try the full experience. (Any hesitation’s mostly been due to trying to figure out timing that works around other things in our lives, and debating costs when you factor in flights and hotels needed, not because we had reservations about the service they provide.) It still feels a little bit like we’re on the high-wire without a net, that we’re going to be gone for a week without our usual support system, but at some point my wife’s right – we have to jump in and do it, or it won’t happen.
So, yeah. A vacation later this year. We’ll have to do some more dry runs before we go on it, but we’ll see how this goes…
Oh, the plunge is great. I highly recommend the plunge. I love going on cruises with my kids. They have a great time, and I can ditch them and relax by the pool, bar, or gym.
Well, save that I can’t ditch my kids, given the circumstance… but we’re definitely committed to it now, so. 🙂