When planning a vacation with two children, one of whom is a strong-willed, rambunctious toddler, there are a number of emotional stages a parent goes through in lead-up to the trip. Case in point:
Stage 1 (6 months prior to trip): Unbridled excitement.  Trip is booked! Maui in February! Let’s gooooo!
Stage 2 (1-2 months prior to trip): Mild anxiety. Gosh, I hope we don’t get sick and have to cancel our trip.
Stage 3 (one week before trip): Cautious optimism. There’s so much to do before we leave. But Juliette is positively bouncing off the walls with glee and we all feel good and I can’t wait to see her zip down that waterslide! Â
Stage 4 (2 days before trip): Utter forlornness / temptation to bail. I “got an early start on packing†but really just have a pile of clothes and diapers that can’t possibly fit into our three suitcases. The house is a mess. And, wait for it…baby boy just got sent home from daycare because he threw up after naptime.
Stage 5 (night before trip): We have come full-circle back to excitement! Baby’s bug seemed to just be a one-day thing and the rest of the family is unscathed. Bags are packed. House is clean, with much help from the determined-to-swim nine year old. Out-of-office assistant has been turned on. Alarm is set. We’re really doing this!
WE WERE DOING THIS. We arrived at the airport early Friday morning and we were pumped. Isaac was in good spirits, I had packed a couple of special toys and snacks to keep him entertained on the six-hour flight, and Juliette was adorably over the moon. Seriously, let’s goooooooooo. We could almost taste the shave ice…
We were stuck on the runway for about an hour due to a minor maintenance issue, but we rolled with it. And then, just as the plane was cleared for take-off, Juliette looked at me, the color immediately draining from her face, and said the three words no parent wants to hear on an airplane: my stomach hurts. I encouraged her to take a few deep breaths and close her eyes and she fell asleep almost immediately, her dozy brother following suit and collapsing against my chest before we’d even left the ground.
She opened her eyes 20 minutes later and smiled weakly, saying she felt better, and I thanked my lucky stars, but the relief was short-lived and suddenly we were reaching for the barf bag with five and a half hours left on our flight time. Ugh, that poor girl. She used up all the sick bags in our row within an hour and I had to ask the flight attendant for another, at which point she handed me a ginormous garbage sack. I thought that was a bit much, but Juliette spent most of the flight with her head in that bag, heaving at 15-minute intervals, whimpering in between that she just wanted to turn around and go home. It was brutal.
Isaac, thankfully, was content for most of the flight, playing with the window stickers and suction spinners I’d ordered from Amazon earlier in the week. Shane and I took turns with the kids, but he did the majority of the bag-holding and I in turn bear-hugged Isaac through his 30-minute crying fit as we neared the end of our flight. We’re a good team.
I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to step off a plane, though Juliette was still feeling awful and clutched her garbage bag all the way to baggage claim. I sent Shane ahead to pick up our rental, not wanting to make Juliette walk any farther, and then stationed her behind a column where could discreetly wretch while I chased Isaac around between yanking our suitcases off the conveyer belt. That whole fiasco was in my top five toughest mom moments, no doubt.
But Shane arrived curbside with the car, hero that he is, we loaded our circus into it, pit-stopped at Target for electrolyte water and wine, and checked into our room at the Grand Wailea without any of our usual “Hooray, we’re here!†photos because all we cared about was tucking our sick child into a clean bed. Juliette melted into the sheets, relief flooding her face. The worst was behind us.
I walked up to the market with Isaac to pick up some dinner for Shane and me and we ate on our patio, very tentatively easing into vacation mode. I took Isaac for a walk to burn off the last of his pre-bedtime steam and introduced him to the magnificent Pacific. Â
He was undecided about the squishy, uneven ground.
But give it time, Buddy. You’ll love it here!
We came back to find a slowly-recovering sister. She was still up every hour or so, choking up her few sips of Gatorade, but she managed small bouts of rest in between and by 9pm she was sleeping soundly. Praise the Lord! Â
Then I threw up at midnight. DAMMIT!
My stomach woes were short-lived, but I was a little achy and low-energy on Saturday and spent much of the day napping in the room. The kids had a good day, though, and I was so happy to see Juliette on the mend and enjoying pizza by the pool. If anyone had earned the right to feel good that day, it was her.
The pool threw Isaac for another bit of a loop, but like the ocean, I assured him he’d learn to love it.
I napped while Isaac napped (and then some), but there are worse rooms to be confined to…
By late afternoon I felt good enough to take Isaac for a nap-walk in the Ergo, though that tuckered me out and after a watching a sunset rainstorm pass by our patio, we fell asleep together at 7pm.
Sunday! Gosh, on Sunday I was a new woman! Isaac and I had each logged 11 hours of sleep and I felt great. I headed out the door with the kids at 6:30 for a sunrise breakfast.
Isaac cheats at cornhole, by the way.
Reunited! The Chens had landed the previous evening and the kids met up for a round of super-sized chess.
Juliette decided that if Isaac was a chess piece, he’d most definitely be the Queen, going any which way he pleases, mowing down anything in his way.
That Maui morning light is so beautiful here…
We headed back late morning to see if Shane was up and ready to play.
Since we’d skipped the leis upon our arrival, I went to the front desk and asked if we have a first day do-over – they were happy to adorn Juliette and me with fresh orchids.
Shane, unfortunately, was the last soldier to fall and needed to spend much of the day sleeping off his aches and pains. Storytime with Isaac took most of the energy he could muster.
It was a bummer to see Dad down and out, but the kids and I managed to find our groove – Isaac grew fonder of the pool, Juliette grew fonder of Isaac in the pool, and we all grew fonder of Maui in general. This felt good.
Like, really, really good.
SO GOOD, you guys. What a joy to see these two play in the water together – this was the trip I’d been dreaming of six months earlier.
Isaac took a late morning nap with his dad and then Juliette and I headed out to work on the hotel scavenger hunt.
She was looking very Carmen Sandiego in her hat and glasses.
We made it through most of the scavenger hunt and then popped back to the room to pick up brother for poolside (in-pool?) iced tea.
Shane turned a slight corner and joined us for a bit.
Juliette and I crossed the last item off her scavenger hunt list on our way back to the room and swung by the front desk for prizes.
Isaac weaseled his way into getting his own prize and was very pleased about it.
Watch out, though – his fish bites!
It took us upward of 20 minutes to get from the front desk to our room as the kids zig-zagged the lobby and played 13 rounds of hide and seek near the elevators, but the lack of need to get anywhere fast was one of my favorite things about this trip.
Juliette wanted to do some swimming with N at his pool in the afternoon, so I dropped her off with him and took Isaac up to the market for a smoothie break. One slurp of my avocado smoothie and he was all grins, asking, “Mo? Mo? Mo?”
More, Mom? Pleeeeeeease?!
I picked up a cheap set of sand toys for Isaac, feeling like we’d delivered Christmas in February, and then it was back to the room for afternoon nap (or so I thought).
LaV and I toasted with poolside Mai Tais while the big kids swam and the little kid (didn’t) nap with his dad.
At 5pm Shane and I called off hopes of a late nap and I took Isaac down to the beach to try out his new sand toys.
Again, looking a little concerned…
But…that water looks kind of fun?
Let’s do it.
I held Isaac’s hand as the water lapped at our feet and he clutched my fingers tightly but cracked a small smile. Ease into it, Kiddo!
It was ultimately the trusty plastic shovel that made him forget about the strange feeling of sand between his toes. Once I pulled that out, he spent a good 30 minutes filling his pail, a few grains at a time.
The boy was focused.
The beauty of Maui is largely lost on a one year old, but there were moments that I felt like he understood, just for a flash, how spectacular this place really is.
Juliette, meanwhile, was enjoying being the Chens’ second child.
But…wait. Is that Sister?!
Such a sweet, happy reunion, Isaac bolting toward her, yelling, “Joo-yeh!!!”
I say this every year, but every year that we watch these kids get such a kick out of playing tag with the ocean, my heart swells. The magic lives on.
Isaac watched from a distance, but I could see him scheming. That looks fun…
And then, he was off, with a major case of the beachfront zoomies.
We chased each other until the sun dipped below the horizon, Isaac’s butt soaked, our feet caked with sand, my cheeks sore from grinning.
Goodnight, Maui. More joy (with a fully-healthy family) on the horizon!
