The twenty-ninth week

"Vacation" now and forever has a new meaning for us. What once would have been welcomed as a week-long respite from the rigors of daily life instead became a simple relocation (and, at times, an amplification) of those rigors.

We returned today from a week at the beach - a highly anticipated trip for Lacey and me. However, as I wrote last Friday, Madeline took a turn for the worse the day before we were set to leave after apparently recovering from a bout of hand-foot-and-mouth disease earlier in the week. Friday night was terrible and we visited the pediatrician on Saturday morning before our scheduled departure. We were told that Madeline had an ear infection, and her poor sleep and agitation the night before were a result of her (obvious) stuffiness and discomfort.

The first few days of the trip followed the same script - little sleep and lots of crying. She was so congested that whenever we laid her down for a nap she would clog up and wake in a coughing fit. Eventually we decided to let her share the king-size bed with us at night so we could comfort her there instead of having to get up every few minutes.

By the end of the week she was stringing together several hours of night sleep, which was great news for her parents, who had been vacationing on as little as three or four hours of sleep a day. Madeline was also in a much better mood as she began to feel the results of the prescription antibiotic and benadryl.

Even if Madeline hadn't been sick, this vacation would have been a different sort of trip. Since Madeline has been with us, my profession has taken a less prominent role in my life as my focus shifted to caring for my daughter and being there for Lacey. It used to be that a vacation was an escape from the workplace and the monotony of the daily routine. But when the issues that consume your life are family-related, they become permanent companions. It's almost as if the vacation was more stressful and tiring than a normal week at the office might have been.

None of this is to say that we didn't have a nice time. We were at the beach, after all. We spent the week with family, we played in the ocean and saw the sights. Madeline set foot in the Atlantic for the first time.

During the first part of the week I wondered if we made the right decision to continue with the trip despite Madeline's illness. I think we did the right thing, despite the struggles. We'll remember the good moments - of which there were many - and the bad ones will simply be filed away among the experiences that strengthen our parenting confidence. We made it through, and managed to have a good time, and that says a lot.