Christine's Marriage Monday subject for the week is Vacations.
Do you take vacations as a family, with just your husband or both?
What are those vacations like? Do they wear you out or refresh you?
Do you schedule Date Nights? If so, do you talk about your children (If you have them) or have a child-free-conversation rule?
Do you have family out of town and if so, how often do you visit them? Is it stressful or relaxing?
How do all these things affect your marriage relationship?
When my family used to go camping, all it meant for me was a four-letter word ~ WORK! Packing, Cleaning, hauling, setting up, taking down, cooking, washing, ad infinitum!
The thing was that I LET that happen. I allowed myself to be used that way. Now that I have more confidence in myself and my kids are a little older, when we go on a vacation - be it camping or overnight at gramma's) I have learned to...
1) delegate authority. Kids can pack and carry their own bags. If they end up wearing the same clothes for three days, then that is their choice. Of course, GRAMMA has an issue with that, but I mentioned that if it bothered her, she might consider visiting the local thrift store. The children NEED to develop some type of responsibility for themselves.
2) break the "rules" ~ especially camping. I don't do hamburgers and pancakes or anything else that requires lengthy cooking when I am on VACATION. Hello, hot dogs, cookies, cup o' noodles and poptarts! :D
When planning a weekend or a date-night with MG (or with my husband when we were married), it works best for us to not place restrictions on conversation and to not set our expectations too high.
I would make reservations, arrange for babysitting, expect wonderful things...and I always got let down.
So I learned to RELAX. If we need to talk about the kids, then we talk about the kids. Why shoot for "Fancy" when you can hold hand and visit with eachother just as well at Mickey D's as you can a French Restaurant?
I have never been able to afford to take my family on a "Vacation" vacation, but sometimes just a couple of days outside your normal surroundings will, if nothing else, serve to make you VEWWY VEWWY grateful for your own home and your own bed. :D
2 comments:
I'm so sorry I missed this post, Janean!! I love how you found out how to delegate vacation tasks and drop your expectations a bit. That made a big difference, it seems! Thanks for posting! Have a great weekend!
These are interesting thoughts on vacationing and rather profound as well. By the sounds of your post it seems that you have grown substantially over time. That's wonderful!
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