Splish Splash, Version 2.0

This past weekend, we went on our first official trip away from home with the girls -- to a little cabin in Pioneer, California. Which is a town that you haven't heard of unless maybe you accidentally drove through it at some point when you were lost, but it's kind of in the Sierra Foothills, in Gold Country. In this case, the exact destination wasn't particularly important -- the important thing was that we were going to stay in a place that wasn't our house, which is something we had yet to do during Leah and Riley's lifetime. And something that we were pretty much scared to death about.

In the end, the trip went okay. Let's give it a solid B-plus. We have to subtract some points because Riley got carsick and puked mightily all over herself, the backseat, her carseat, and poor defenseless Jacque the Peacock as we drove to the lake for an afternoon swim. A nice little pungent bright-red tomato and carrot puke, causing mommy and daddy to have to try to frantically change and wipe their daughter clean while she lay screaming on a mat on the shoulder of Highway 88 in 98-degree heat with Leah simultaneously crying in her carseat just to register her own indignation that nobody was paying attention to her.

I'm sure if you're a parent you already know this, but wow, going on vacation with babies sure isn't the same as going on vacation with just your significant other. There should be a different word for it, other than "vacation", because that doesn't really seem like the appropriate word. Um, bacation?

It's not that I didn't enjoy our bacation, because I definitely did. But I didn't exactly come back from bacation refreshed and rejuvenated, like I would after a typical vacation. After this trip, I was pretty much a worn-out, sleepy, sore, exhausted mess. I needed a vacation to recover from my bacation.

But it was worth it, because somehow all that seemed to really matter is whether the babies were having a good time, and they most definitely were, at least most of the time. It was damn hot in Gold Country and our cabin wasn't air conditioned, but that just gave us an excuse to sit with the girls in the outdoor jacuzzi for hours, as they joyfully splashed and splashed and splashed away until bedtime. (You know it's hot out when a jacuzzi feels refreshingly cool.) Plus there was an undeniable sense of accomplishment at the end of our bacation, like we had finally faced up to this thing that had once seemed so scary and found that it wasn't quite as scary as we had thought it would be. Exhausting and barfy, maybe, but not all that worthy of fear.

And for the record, good times were had at the lake once we finally wiped off all that tomatoey barf.