A mantra to keep your family vacation sane

Today's guest blogger is Lauren Napolitano, Psy.D., a licensed psychologist on staff at Bryn Mawr Hospital and in private practice in Bryn Mawr.

As parents, we have limited days in which to travel.  We plan our trips in advance, we save our money and we go into vacations with very high expectations.  We hope for smooth traveling, good weather, comfortable accommodations and incredible fun while on vacation.  Even before we've packed our bags, we have visualized ourselves having the best time ever.

Big mistake.

While preparing for a spectacular vacation helps us to get through the less glamorous aspects of our parenting and work routines, we often set ourselves up for disappointment.  Because we have only prepared ourselves for blue skies and happy, smiling children, we are frazzled in the face of vacation chaos.

Vacation is no different than 'regular' life.  There will be traffic, the baby will soil his diaper right after you pull out of the driveway, you will forget to pack your favorite sunglasses, and the Cheerios will get spilled all over the backseat of the car.  Life, especially with kids, can be unpredictable and chaotic.  Rather than expecting a 'perfect' vacation, it's better to hope that you have fun on vacation, even if it means deviating from the plans that you have painstakingly made.

To remind yourself of this fact, I recommend using this mantra: 'nothing on vacation ever goes according to plan.'  It reminds you to keep a sense of humor about the inevitable bumps in the road that occur while on vacation.

Last year I went on vacation to Washington DC with my kids.  I planned for the three of us to do a bike tour of the Washington DC monuments at night.  I visualized my younger daughter on a tandem bike with me and my older daughter proudly pedaling her own bike.  I imagined the all-American, athletic-looking photos that we would take.  In my mind, it was going to be the highlight of the trip and a night that my kids and I would remember forever.

The night of the bike tour, we ate dinner early and grabbed our water bottles as we were heading out of the hotel.  As always, I tasked my older daughter with using the GPS on my phone so that she could help me to navigate while I drove.  Immediately after exiting the hotel we hit bumper to bumper traffic.  I could feel my chest tighten as I could feel that we were running late.  Finally my phone's GPS announced that we had arrived at our destination.  I was so excited.

We started running toward the bike tour starting point and somehow ended up inside Union Train Station.  I looked around, and thought, 'well, this is an odd starting point for a bike tour'.  Sport water bottles in tow, I approached person after person asking where to meet the bike tour.  Each person shrugged.  Finally someone informed me that Union Station was the corporate office for the bike tour but that the starting point for the tour was on the other side of the city.

I was crestfallen. I felt like Chevy Chase in the movie 'National Lampoon's Vacation' where he drags his family to visit 'Wally World' only to find that the amusement park is closed. I felt rage, sadness, indignation and foolishness wash over me.  I sat for about one minute and pouted before reminding myself of my mantra. I laughed to my kids and said 'nothing on vacation ever goes according to plan.'

Rather than returning to the hotel with our tail between our legs, we decided to use the missed bike tour as an opportunity to do something different.  mmediately we bought ice cream (as ice cream is the cure-all for everything on vacation) and we starting poring over the vast city tour options that were available from Union Station. We found a double decker bus tour of the monuments that was ready to depart in a few minutes.  And I have to say, the bus tour was great. My older daughter appreciated the history, my younger daughter promptly fell asleep and I was happy to see the Washington DC monuments at night.

The key to a happy vacation is making the most out of the time that you have with your family.  Life rarely goes according to plan.  But often, it's the spontaneous, unplanned adventures that you take on vacation that are the most memorable of all.

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