Where’s MY Vacation?!?!

This summer has become a complete nightmare. I am feeling so stressed out every day and I don’t even have a vacation to look forward to. My parents left yesterday for a 9 day Caribbean cruise and I should have stowed away in their luggage. The next month and a half are such a scheduling nightmare I dare you to even keep this straight…

First off, Nate goes to summer camp at his school Monday through Friday from 8am to 1pm. Normally my mother picks him up and takes him to my house or her house depending on the day and I arrive home at 6pm. Love’s schedule has been working Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and every other Wednesday 7am to 7pm so he was able to pick Nate up Thursday’s and Friday’s and every other Wednesday. On Monday he starts a new job (at my place of employment – we’ll be co-workers!) and will now work Monday through Friday, 7am to 3pm for the rest of the summer.

As if that is not confusing enough we then add in my parent’s vacations. My mother works at a middle school so she is off all summer. My father usually take off 2 weeks in July and another 2 in August to go to their vacation house on Prince Edward Island in Canada (they love islands apparently since both of their homes are on one lol). August 5^th is their 40^th wedding anniversary so they decided to take the cruise this month to celebrate and next month they will still go to Canada. Normally I would take off a couple of days, Love’s parents would come for 3 and Love would take off one week to cover July. Nate’s school closes the last week of August so that is when I take a week off and the week before Love would take a couple of days and his parents would help out again.

Who wouldn't want to spend 2 days with these cuties?

Are you still with me? This year the schedule is completely different. My parent’s left yesterday for the cruise and Love was off so that worked out. Today is his last day at his current job so his parent’s are driving almost 4 hours to pick Nate up at school and spend the night. They will head home Saturday and come back Monday to pick Nate up again and will stay through Wednesday. Wednesday night Nate and I will head to Brooklyn to babysit for my nephew since his daycare is closed for 2 weeks and my brother and his wife need some help (and I love spending time with Charlie). We will head back to Long Island Friday morning with Little Mr. Charlie in tow so I can get some things done for Nate’s party (wishful thinking with a 5-month old I know) and my brother will pick him up Friday night. My in-laws will return Saturday for Nate’s party (I am so glad they are retired and don’t mind driving because I feel terrible about it).

As for August I thought we had that covered until my dad’s job told him he couldn’t have the last 2 weeks of August off. My parents will now go to Canada the middle 2 weeks. Here is the problem…Love cannot take any time off in August because he will have just started a new job. I cannot take off the second week in August because I have an event at work. I will take the third week off and the last week of August when Nate’s school is closed my mother will have to watch Nate from 8am until 4pm. Of course she is not happy about that because she goes back to work the following week. I had to gently remind her that it was HER vacation that was causing all of this chaos so she really had no right to complain.

Basically since I had Nate we have not had a week long family vacation because of my parent’s vacation schedule. I don’t begrudge them their time away because they deserve it. I also can’t complain because my mother has been watching Nate since he was 11 weeks old and it has saved us a lot of money. I just miss having a summer where we can spend time as a family. Nate and I will have fun during my time off but it’s not the same. I will keep reminding myself that it could be worse and MAYBE next year we can get away even if it’s only a few days. Maybe…