Living Happily Ever After

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Second Marriage Moment #18: Family Vacation

“It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge.” (Phyllis Diller)

Kids.

We have quite a few of them, thanks to our remarriage. Eight, to be exact. (Plus one daughter-in-law.) And we recently took all of them on our first family vacation.

It was quite a feat (not just the traveling as a group of 11 part, but in even pulling it off financially, not to mention coordinating the calendars of 11 different family members and 7 different work and vacation schedules to find dates that worked for everyone!) My husband, the two youngest children and I flew ahead of the rest of the group; the 7 teens/young adults flew to our destination a few days later. We met them at the airport.

I hugged my daughter and asked how her flight was. She reported the adventure of having a conversation with a woman sitting next to her on the airplane. Apparently, the group was seated in three rows of two, with my daughter sitting across the aisle from the group. The woman asked, “Are you traveling alone?”

My daughter replied, “No. I’m traveling with my brothers and sisters.”

The woman commented, “You’re a little young to be traveling alone, aren’t you?” She wanted to know who the brothers and sisters were. My daughter pointed to the three rows of passengers (ages 13-24) across the aisle and the woman was stunned to realize how large the group was. “There are so many of you— and no parents!”

My daughter explained, “Yes, our parents flew out early for our dad’s birthday.”

The woman nodded, knowingly, and said something about the parents getting away alone and leaving the children behind. My daughter clarified, “Oh no, our parents took the two youngest children with them!”

The woman’s face showed her surprise as she mentally calculated the total number of children that had to be connected to just one family, our family, and asked one more question, “Where are you from?”

My daughter replied, “Utah.”

Conversation over! I guess that state explained it all, because the woman didn’t talk to my daughter after that.

As my daughter related her travel experience, the others shared similar stories. The oldest daughter reported she’d also had a lot of strangers comment on the size of her family and said she handled all conversations with a quick explanation: “It’s a ‘Yours, Mine & Ours’ family.”

Not that I doubted their experiences, but I was surprised to have one of my own on the return flight. We boarded as a group and as we stepped on the plane, a flight attendant asked me, “Is this a family reunion?”

I shook my head and answered, “No, it’s just a family vacation.”

The flight attendant looked at me with big eyes, like she wasn’t sure she believed me. I added, “Really, we’re just one dad, one mom, eight kids and one in-law.”

Before I could explain further, the oldest daughter swooped in to rescue me with her well-practiced, “It’s a ‘Yours, Mine & Ours’ family.”

All I can say is that if fellow travelers couldn’t believe the size of our family, there’s something they would have to have seen to believe as well: the packed cars filled with all 11 of us, our suitcases and everything else the kids hauled on vacation.

Apparently, “Those that say you can’t take it with you never saw a car packed for a vacation trip.”

“Yours Mine And Ours”

“I don’t answer the phone.  I get the feeling whenever I do that there will be someone on the other end.” (Fred Couples)

The phone call came at the end of the work day Monday afternoon. It was from the ice arena. Our sons, the boys we’d disagreed about and had broken our engagement off over just the night before, had gotten into a public brawl on the ice. Supposedly, his son bumped my son while they were skating and hitting pucks (that’s hockey.) But my son didn’t like that and hit his son. His son hit mine back for hitting him. And then my son took his hockey stick to his son, swung it like a baseball bat and hit his son across the back!

My oldest son witnessed it, ejected my middle son from the ice, and the offender was MAD. He called me, wanted me to pick him up from the ice rink so he wouldn’t have to wait there and watch the other boys having fun. Unfortunately, I work in another city so that wasn’t possible. (I also thought it wouldn’t hurt him to cool off, to sit and watch the other boys having fun on the ice, so I told him we’d talk about it when we got home.)

I hung up the phone and shook my head. WhoEVER would have thought I’d be the mother of a son who got in a brawl, in public? Certainly not me! (Yet here I am, delighting in all kinds of unexpected experiences I’m continually blessed with.)

Then I called #5 and left him a message. ”I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but there was a physical altercation on the ice today. I’m calm, I’m not upset; I hope you are too. While I don’t know if you have other plans for this evening, I don’t think we can let this go any longer. We need to sit down and talk to the boys, together, tonight.”

It’s funny how life prepares you for…life. How certain things (people, places, events, experiences) can prepare you for other things–even when you don’t realize you’re going to need them. Like how we’d had our disagreement about our boys just the night before. At the time, I’d thought it was a terrible thing–to fight and then break up–yet in reality, it allowed us to work through our issue, separate the issue from us, get it together and present a united front to our children.

When #5 walked into my home that night, he looked at me with a smile and joked, “What would Mike and Carol Brady do?”

There was only one answer to that. I’d learned it from my wise Colorado friend when I mistakenly expected to make my remarriage/blended family situation like The Brady Bunch and it wasn’t working, and I’d thought I was disappointed–until she straightened me out. I shared it with #5.  I said, “PLEASE! It doesn’t matter what Mike and Carol would do. We aren’t the Brady Bunch, never will be, and I’m ok with that.” I added, “Mike was gay; Carol was depressed; Greg kissed his step-sister Marcia; Alice couldn’t get her love, Sam-the-meat-man to commit…I don’t want or need to be The Brady Bunch!”

And in that moment I realized, again, I really feel that way. What #5 and I have, with our children, is right for us. It’s actually very, very good. We need to help a couple of our children learn to appreciate each other a little more–however biological siblings sometimes need to work on that, too.

But it was a good opportunity to tell #5 what I DID want: ”If we’re going to be like anyone, I want to be ‘Yours Mine & Ours!’” I exclaimed.

He looked at me strangely, couldn’t figure that one out, I guess, because he asked, “‘Yours Mine & Ours?’ Why that? They had way more kids than we do and besides, I’m not in the armed forces.”

“Yes, I know!” I explained. “But Rene Russo is WAY hotter. If I’m going to be like anyone, let alone any stepmother, let it be her!”

We laughed, went in together and had a great talk with our sons. I have to say, I think that challenge made us better; stronger than ever. The challenges of life, the unexpected life itself, have a way of doing that, you know.

“Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.” (Henry Ward Beecher)