"Be Where Your Feet Are.” Mothering Through Vacations, Tantrums, and Transitions

“Be where your feet are.” It was a quote I stumbled upon and was trying to take to heart, reminding myself of it often throughout the day as my thoughts began spiraling away from the here and now and into the unknown future.

My stomach would start to twist in knots as I thought about the impulsive purchase my husband and I made together (which was very possibly an excellent decision; it was just unusual for us to make such a decision without weeks or months of careful calculation).

My heart would race as I thought about a close friend’s recent lab work which showed that, yes, there were some malignant growths and yes, you do need to follow up about that. I would even begin to feel a bit nauseas as I realized our son was going to be in kindergarten in a year, and did I know where he was going to go, and had I really looked into the other options, and was I robbing him of an opportunity to learn a new language if I kept him in the same school as his preschool peers (or would I be tearing him from his security and close friendships if I moved him to the language-focused one)?

I put my hand on my heart and patted it as I hopped onto my bike. “I make good decisions. I can trust myself. I am right here right now,” I said out loud.

Be where your feet are.

My brain seemed to be going a million miles a minute lately, something I attributed to being on vacation with family who helped with cooking, cleaning, child care, laundry. My brain felt freer to think of the next thing; the children sprinted from their beds to their grandparents in the morning to read books and play, leaving my husband and I to sleep in.

We were still often in separate beds, as I would read to the children before sleep and could never, would never say no to my four-year-old who would then say, “Can you cuddle me, mama?” as I turned the lights off. My three-year-old would curl close to me on the other side of the same bed.

I almost always fell asleep there, too, and my husband had (nearly) come to accept that this was the phase of life we were in; mom would fall asleep with the kiddos, then crawl back to our bed in the middle of the night when my neck was stiff or my arm had fallen asleep.

However, on vacation, I would wake in the middle of the night with a brain full of ideas. I knew what I should do about the work logistics, I had the right wording for that email response, I remembered that I wanted to make an itinerary for our next trip. I thought about the friend I meant to reach out to, I researched schools for our children and booked kindergarten tours. I strategized the type of structure that would best replace our leaking garage, and dreamt about our next European excursion.

I’d be up for three or four hours, then plan to go sleep with my husband; but, craving the snuggles of my children, the smell of their hair and the sound of their breathing, I’d crawl back into bed alongside them.

My husband would sometimes awaken to texts from me describing my most recent ideas, but I often tried to balance my flurry of thoughts by slowly parceling them over the course of the day. He’d still laugh at me lovingly, then attempt to patiently listen to my new ideas.

My father-in-law described a wild dream to me one morning; I asked how often he had them. “All the time, it seems” he replied. I mused about how my weirdest dreams are when I travel or have a transition in my life, and he cocked his head in thought. “You know,” he said, “they probably started when I entered retirement.”

I nodded in understanding, then described my nightly routine of waking with a slew of ideas that were surprisingly helpful and useful. “I think when the brain has an opportunity to rest,” I started, after describing my ability to sleep in and not worry about the children’s routine or breakfast or keeping up with household tasks, “we get more creative.”

It seemed true, as I had solved problems that had been mulling around in my brain for weeks when we were in our normal routine at home. Now that we had been on vacation for a week at my in-laws, I was finding it easy to find creative solutions.

I was also aware I was in a new stage of motherhood; as my children exited diapers and were able to use words to ask for what they needed, my own security in my mothering methods began to grow. I could feel confident in my choices.

Our parenting style also seemed to have spilled into the ways my in-laws cared for the children. I heard them using the phrases they’d heard us use when they were the main caregivers for the moment (“gentle hands” “let’s give space” “check in to see if he’s okay”).

It was a lovely thing to witness, both for the sake of the children and myself. As much as I’d like to be secure in my own parenting choices, I couldn’t help but feel validated when someone takes them on themselves as well. My husband and I reflected on this trip; it felt easier than any previous visits here with children. Could it be that the children were just older and required less constant supervision, or that our in-laws were learning our family habits and choosing to lean into them? Quite probably both.

As our vacation days dwindled to an end, we thought about the way the long car ride had began the last time we visited. Our newly four-year-old had thrown a fit so intense I didn’t know what else to do except load him into his car seat, saying “You are safe. I love you. You will be okay” as he screamed so hard and so miserably that I cried too.

A text I had written to a girlfriend after the fact described it as “alligator-wresting” him into his car seat.

Upon reflection later, I realized he had been terribly sad to leave. I wished I had given him more time to say goodbye; we could have started our goodbyes a day before, saying goodbye to the pool, goodbye to the alligator (“Aly”) that we visited on the golfcart each trip, goodbye to his bedroom. Goodbye to the palm trees and goodbye to the geckos that darted around on the ground.

I’ll remember next time, I told myself, and I did.

This time, our little nuclear family all hopped into the golf cart and drove to see Aly the night before our departure.

“Goodbye, Aly,” we sang. “Thanks for letting us visit,” I said, and my three year old sang it right back to her. “See you next time we come to Florida,” my husband added. And, just like that, our four year old darted back to the golfcart, seemingly unmoved. “Can you play the muppet music again?”

As we left the house, we said goodbye to dou-dous (the French word we still use for stuffed animals), goodbye to the pool, goodbye to the bedroom.

“They will miss us,” our son said about his grandparents as we climbed into the van, packed with snacks and books and toys and all the new clothes my mother in law had bought for the boys.

“Yes, they will miss us,” my husband and I agreed.

As we started our 14 hour drive back home in a peaceful van I came across the text message I sent to a girlfriend the last trip, as I was recovering from the craziest tantrum I had witnessed in my gentle little boy.

“Yesterday after those huge feelings, Carter fell asleep in the car immediately. When he woke up from his nap, he said “I was feeling so sad about the buckle”. I asked him if he was sad to leave Momo and Pepe’s (my in-laws). He said “yeah, and I wanted to climb up and I was sad. But I’m happy now.” I said, “you were having some big feelings huh” and he said “yeah. Sorry for yelling at you.” 🥹

I said “it’s okay honey, mommy and daddy having big emotions sometimes too” and he said “yeah. Can I have a gingerbread cookie?” 😂

As I reflect on my mothering journey, maybe I can admit that although that moment felt wildly hard, my son actually handled it pretty well.

And you know? I think I handled it pretty well too.