Things I Learned on Vacation

I recently went on a vacation to Lake Tahoe and Reno. What a fun trip!

I learned:

My toddler can sleep in a bed that isn't a playpen or crib ... so long as he isn't at home.

When your favorite wine is really on sale, no one else in your group drinks and you look like you have a real problem.

Folks in Nevada have a different idea of "really hot" than I do living in Virginia. Thank goodness for sweaters.

When parents trade off entertaining the children in the lobby of the casino, some people understand, but other people think one of you has a problem.

No matter how out of shape you are, in Lake Tahoe and Virginia City it is all the fault of the thin air -- even when you go grasping for your asthma inhaler at the top of the moutain they call a hill between the parking lot and main street.

The list of restaurants on the McDonalds search page for Lake Tahoe is not quite right, and when it comes to hashbrown addictions, one of us has a real problem.

Train whistles are really, really loud when you aren't expecting them.

The "unmeltable" fudge really won't melt, but it will get awfully squishy.

There is no such thing as a spillproof sippy cup.

If given half a chance, Daddys will put sippy cups in diaper bags upside down.

My son's allergies apparently are not to east coast deciduous trees. This could be a problem.

Some people laugh at this blog. Others just read it calmly and say, "How true. How true, especially the part about the jiggling backside." Now wait a minute, what do you mean, "How true" -- did you just call me fat, or were you talking about your own backside?

In addition to all of the above, I learned, as I do every day, that my son is not as predictable as I pretend he is. Earlier this week I walked into a tourist shop filled with tacky reproductions of western somethings-or-other and the usual shotglasses and other kitch. They also had a rack of the ugliest children's sunglasses I'd ever seen -- purple, yellow, green and pink all in the same frame, blended together with the most dank looking versions of the colors you can possibly dream up. Until that moment, my little boy had never worn a pair of sunglassess willingly for more than 5.5 seconds, but he saw those precious things and fell in love. He reached over, snagged one from the rack and deftly put them over his eyes. It was then that I realized how attractive they really were, and I don't understand how I missed their charm. They put to shame the cute Mickey Mouse sunglasses we tried to convince our little guy to like in the drugstore (he put them back), and they are far, far more appealing than the snazzy and stylish royal blue Babybanz sunglasses we bought him at the eye doctor's recommendation to protect his baby blues. No, these pink, purple, green, and yellow swirly glasses that look like a bad acid trip left to rot in the Sierra Nevada hills are in fact the most beautiful sunglasses I have ever seen. It is a good thing, too, because he won't take them off. It is an even better thing that I had the cash to pay for them, too, because 2 years is awfully young to have your first shoplifting rap.

PS -- it was raining when I got home.