Oh boy. The annual family vacation. It’s a real kick in the teeth, isn’t it? As a mother who genuinely enjoys her children, I want to love the family vacation. I want to be fun and calm and spontaneous and have the cheery disposition of a kindergarten teacher. I want to have a never-ending supply of patience and age-appropriate activities for my children. I want to remember to bring the pack-n-play for the baby to sleep in. But, in the words of the poet Mick Jagger, you can’t always get what you want.

Instead, I find myself vacillating between extremes. I well up with tears when I see my baby wiggle his fat little toes into the ocean for the first time. Then I seethe with white hot rage when the hostess tells us there is a two-hour wait to pay $15 for a shitty kids meal at a bubba gump’s shrimp. I tell myself to take mental pictures so I can remember the sweet way my sons play together in the hotel pool. Then I wish desperately for the whole thing to be over so the baby can sleep in a crib instead of on a make-shift sleeping pad in the laundry room while I worry all night long he’s suffocating.

The universe imparts its wisdom in interesting ways. Take it from me, reader, bring your own pack-n-play. Even if the AirBnB says they have plenty of cribs. Even if you call ahead and they assure that they have cribs. Also, just go to dinner at 5 o’clock. 4:30 if it’s a popular restaurant. Are you even hungry? It doesn’t matter. And buy the novelty t-shirt, even if it’s 30 bucks. You have much bigger things to regret in life.

The key to a nice trip to the beach is a tag team approach. One parent has to wrangle the children for 30 minutes at a time, giving the big kid snacks and brushing sand out of the baby’s mouth. The other parent gets to drink a cocktail and read a book and dream about a time in the future when she can sit on the beach without her boobs leaking milk. Then you switch. Repeat until you’ve run out of gatorade, then go inside and get ready for dinner.

Gulf Shores had great seafood. Blackened, fried, skewered, I love it all, baby. As a landlocked shrimp lover, I ate as many crustaceans as I could fit in my mammal mouth, savoring their proximity to the ocean and fresh flavor. They were best when consumed with a dirty gin martini, extra dirty. I wanted my belly as salty as the pacific ocean.

We discovered that virgin pina coladas taste delicious and will keep a kid happy for an entire meal. They feel adult and fancy, which is very cool if you’re almost five (or almost 37).

Also, mini golf followed by ice cream is the most perfect way to spend a hot ass summer day in Alabama.

Our AirBnB was really a condo that was on the 15th floor. I got a discount on the price because the elevators weren’t working all the time, but this view was worth it.

It was great to see the boys play together – it was their first vacation together, after all, and I think they had a great time. It made some (a lot) of the stress very nearly worth it. It’s weird being the mom, isn’t it?

Then, just like that, our time was up and we had to go. Shawn drove himself back to Missouri and I flew with the two boys to Kansas City. As we landed, I congratulated myself – yes there were tantrums (all around), rolled eyes, bribes and stress – but nobody died and we got out of the midwest for five days. I’ll count that as a win. Family-of-four annual vacations – 1 down, 73 to go (math based on me living until I’m 110 and forcing my children to bring me on their vacations when I’m old as hell).