10 Miles To Tulip Town — The Wee Wanderer

When you become a parent, the concept of “vacation” changes entirely. Before Baby, a vacation meant that I was “off.” Of everything. After Baby, one or two things (money-job, laundry, or meal preparation, say) might stop happening for a few days, but the main thing – the all-encompassing life-or-death responsibility that is parenting – is still there. That never goes away. It took me a couple of vacations to come to this realization, and now I anticipate “breaks” with what I consider a healthy mixture of excitement and anxiety.

I am a high-school English teacher, so breaks come around frequently. We teachers take our time off very seriously; the expectation is that we not only stop working for the duration of the break, but that we get as far as humanly possible from the school building. The question we ask each other is not, “Do you have any plans?” but “Where are you going?”

The Menauls normally adhere to this tradition, but this Spring Break, we stayed in town. Travis had to work, and Levi was just getting into a good sleeping groove (knock on wood!), so we didn’t make any plans. As I said goodbye to my co-workers on Friday, I felt the familiar Before-Baby tingling of freedom, but it was marked by a twinge of doubt – Was I ready for a week of full-time momming? How would I handle the onslaught of Facebook updates featuring my coworkers enjoying actual vacation vacations in places like Sedona and Maui? The weather called for rain all week – Could Caspar Babypants sustain us through that many days of indoor play? Only time would tell. . .

The weather report called for rain, and rain it did. But more stupefying than the week-long squall that perfectly coincided with Spring Break was Levi’s uncanny decision to take his own 9-day break – from NAPPING.

Here let us take a moment to acknowledge the profound significance of the mental oasis in every parent’s day known as NAP TIME. Without it, we would all absolutely LOSE OUR MINDS. It is the time when we do any or all of the following: eat a meal involving kale or any other grown-up ingredient; use the bathroom in private; prepare dinner 6 hours in advance because it’s just easier; enjoy some quality screen time; read a book not made out of cardboard; what have you. It is our re-set button, our fleeting “me time,” a sanity-saving golden hour in a day otherwise dedicated exclusively to someone else’s wants and needs. Naptime. Is. Life.

So that ended. This was. . . um. . . really hard for me. Whatever hope I had of enjoying any semblance of “break” disintegrated completely by Wednesday. And by Friday, I was spending the normal naptime hour sprawled on the living room floor fighting tears as Levi played trains, blissfully unaware of his mother’s state of mental decay.

But life goes on, and we did all of the things: museums and stroller runs and play dates and so on. But it still didn’t feel anything like a vacation. I needed something more, something that I could do with Levi but not specifically for him. April is tulip season, so I decided that on Sunday, the last day of Spring Break, the Menauls would tour the Skagit County tulip fields by bike. Rain or shine, we were going.

It rained, and we were off! There is nothing quite like driving through the rain en route to an outdoor activity. All of you PNW readers know what I’m talking about. But I didn’t let that stop us. It was going to be our first ride of the season, and Travis had completed his usual meticulous preparation routine. The bikes, trailer, and all of our gear were loaded; it would have taken a tornado to stop us.

By the time we got to La Conner, the rain had turned to a mist, so we loaded up and embarked! (That sounds straightforward, but “loading up” is actually a ridiculously time-consuming and slightly embarrassing affair.) Surprisingly, Levi fell asleep exactly as we’d hoped. Unfortunately, I had to pee; but I didn’t want to risk stopping the bike to pull over. The tulip loop Travis had found was only 15 miles long, and if Levi could sleep for at least 10, we stood a good chance of actually finishing with everyone in good spirits. Stopping the trailer can be the kiss of death for a nap, so I held it in.

Slightly uncomfortable, but happy to be doing something fun, we headed toward Tulip Town. Within minutes, the rain began again in earnest. Levi was snug under the rainfly, but mom and dad were getting pelted. (Raindrops, it turns out, actually do make it harder to hold it in.) On top of the pee and the rain, there was a massive headwind, which made the pedaling slower and froze our fingers and toes, despite the balmy 52 degrees. Was it my imagination, or were cars slowing down to check us out? And not as in, “What a cool family!” but more like, “What the. . .?”

But we were doing something! It’s hard to explain, but the wetter and windier and colder it got, the milder my memories of the week became. The desperate text messages I’d sent Travis, the ridiculous songs I’d made up for Levi in a sorry effort to get him to nap, my plan to uncork a bottle of champagne if Levi did in fact fall asleep (never happened) – these memories were about legitimate frustration, but they morphed into nostalgic comedy on the bike.

By the time we had ridden the 10 miles to Tulip Town, the euphoria of having made it totally trumped any physical discomfort I was feeling. It had been a long week -- a really long week -- but we had survived Spring “Break.” Ironically, our reward had also been a test. I’d say all three of us aced it