The Ultimate Guide to Staycations

Calling anything involving kids a “vacation” is a JOKE! Once you are a parent, the only true vacation begins with you and your kids getting in vehicles going in opposite directions. Since most of us aren’t made of money, we have to try and convince ourselves that staying together at home counts as a vacation. We even give it a cutesy name….the staycation…to try and hide the fact that it is a form of torture that even Satan would hesitate to inflict.

If you’re like me and are staycationing with your kids, you will need a survival guide. You will need suggestions on how to beg, borrow and steal 20 minutes of quiet time so that you can keep your head from exploding. To help us out, I’ve compiled the ultimate guide to staycations:

1. Read in the dark: How did parents survive before book apps existed? Did they just lie there in the dark? One of my favorite staycations happens right at bedtime. I read my kid a story as quickly as possible and then lie down at the foot of her bed until she falls asleep. That usually takes 3 minutes. But I lie there for a good 30 minutes each time reading books on my kindle app. Why? Well, no one is going to come and bother me if I am putting the kid to sleep. If my husband does open the door to check on me, I quickly say “she just fell asleep” and put on an air of exhaustion and frustration. I’ve had plenty of practice with it, so I can pull it out at a moment’s notice.
2. Read on the potty: Karen from the Baby Sideburns talks a lot about hiding in the bathroom to read People Magazine when she comes down with a case of fake IBS. After spending a month with an actual stomach virus, I can tell you with complete confidence that she is on to something. There were two upsides to that month of sickness. One was losing a crap ton (literally) of weight. The other was having an all-access pass to my bathroom hideout whenever I wanted. The key to getting to go in there by yourself is to cite an illness. If you don’t have a virus, I recommend Karen’s FIBS as a great alternative.
3. The dishes: Remember when you were a kid and your mom would make you do the dishes and you hated it. Looking back now I wonder if she was secretly laughing while thinking that in 20 a few years I’d be begging to wash the dishes so that I could have a break, especially on Tuesdays when the kids have been home all day. If my husband even sets foot in the kitchen after dinner, he can expect to be bitch-slapped back over to the play carpet where he belongs. That staycation is MINE!
4. Work: Even if you don’t have a paying job, when you are a mom you quickly realize how much easier it is to “work” than deal with the kids. My husband pulls out the work card all the time. I’ve started counting doing anything off my To Do list as work…like paying the bills. I can stretch three online payments out to 20 minutes if I concentrate really hard…and make sure to minimize the facebook screen whenever my husband walks by.

Do you have any other staycation ideas? If so, help a mother out!