I’m on vacation this week, so my posting time and creativity is in more of a relax/restoration mode than I would have expected. That combined with the fact that I’m using my iPad versus my laptop, AND I’ve spent the last five days with my children beside me twenty-four hours a day, has lead to a surprisingly small amount of insight that I feel worthy to share with myself, much less the world.

But today, here I sit, alone on my balcony enjoying the temperate ocean breezes while my husband entertains/endures a beach visit with the critters. I had a lovely massage and facial earlier and now am kicking back, enjoying this last day of vacation, and I am loving everything. Well, almost everything. There is this one little thing… it’s my six-year-old. And her continued unwillingness to well, release. The girl, once again, in true anal retentive fashion decided to hold back until we finally got her to go. Which of course led to one of our time-honored vacation traditions – calling maintenance to unclog the toilet. It’s better now, and so is she (for the time being), but it did serve as a good reminder for me: it doesn’t matter if you’re in the middle of an urban McDonald’s trying to make the late train or in the middle of paradise with nothing to do but sit back and relax, if you’re a parent, inevitably there’s going to be some unexpected crap you’re going to have to deal with.