My Passover Vacation, By WG

Apparently, my parents hate kids. More specifically, they hate my kids, who do things like touch couches without first washing their hands. They also want to be entertained regularly, with games and books and television shows. My parents think that these things are clear signs that my kids and my parenting suck.

“When you were children,” my parents said repeatedly over the course of the visit, “you sat quietly and you never caused any trouble. You never got the couches dirty. You sat through the entire seder. You didn’t complain about the food being served. You didn’t watch this much television. You didn’t ask that we play games with you.”

Funny, if we were such perfect children, why do I remember getting into so much trouble?

I think my favorite part was when D. got up from the lunch table Friday afternoon and headed for the couch. “D! D! D!” shrieked my mother.

“That’s totally ineffective,” I said, loudly. Which was, I suppose, the wrong thing to say, because it unleashed a torrent of vitriol that went something like this:

“You may not care about furniture, but I have had this furniture longer than I have had you. When you were small, we took you to our parents’ homes, which were a lot smaller, and we managed to keep you entertained and you never destroyed furniture. You just want us to provide full time childcare.”

“No one asked you for full time childcare,” I corrected. “But we gave you VERY SPECIFIC instructions for how we speak to D., and THAT’S NOT THE WAY.”

There was more yelling that I don’t remember, and then I said something like, “Fine, then this is the last time we’ll do this.”

Whereupon S. went to find Mr. WG – who hadn’t bothered to join us for lunch – and told him, “We’re never coming back here again.” And then, on the last day we were there, I was packing up stuff and I announced that the crappy gifts given to my kids by random people would stay, to be enjoyed on our next visit.

“But you said we’re never coming back here again!” protested Z.

Yes, yes I did.

And it is true that we have spent our last Pesach there. In the future, I’m thinking Thanksgiving. Like, fly in on Thursday, leave on Sunday. That’s about the amount of time we can handle.

Or maybe my favorite part of the trip was Sunday morning, when Mr. WG got up with the kids and went to put on a little Dora. He couldn't find the remote. My father said, "That's right. I hid it. I think that your children watch too much TV."

Now, this was just after Shabbat, when my kids had watched exactly NO TV. And Sunday night would start another two-day yomtov, when my kids would watch exactly... NO TV.

I also really enjoyed the part where my parents kept telling my kids they could go swimming. And then when my kids asked, "Can we go swimming?" my parents said, "Of course. Just tell your parents to take you."

Oh, it was fun. Almost as much fun as banging my head into the wall repeatedly. Almost.

And then guess what happened? We were almost home. Literally, five minutes from our house. And BABY J. THREW UP. All over himself. And then, from Wednesday through Sunday, he screamed constantly and slept a total of maybe one hour.

I can't actually remember the last time I've had such a good time.