Lord in heaven. If you have Littles, or have ever had Littles, or have ever been around Littles, what I am about to say is no revelation, but it is Truth: taking a trip with Littles is not a vacation. In fact, I am not even sure it can qualify as travel. It is simply the same – nope, more – work than caring for your children in your own home. 

See? I told you. Nothing newsworthy here, and yes I acknowledge that being able to go anywhere with my family is a privilege, but just to keep life balanced from the IG and FB feeds with cute (if not all looking at the same time pics), I also have to say the obvious, which is that being away from home right now is freaking hard work.

Of course our reasons for travel are great. Getting to SoDak for first time in 14 months was important to us. Seeing my two remaining grandparents and attending a family reunion were big priorities for us this summer. 

But of course life and sharing rooms never goes quite as planned and so here we are smack in the middle of our trip, tired, frustrated from a hurry up and wait afternoon that was out of everyone’s hands, and hoping against hope that everyone will get some damn sleep tonight (& that whichever kid wakes up in the middle of the morning doesn’t wake up the rest of the crew by flipping on the bathroom light because Truman got a whopping 30 minutes of day sleep today and holy crap, do we need him to SLEEP) . 

I’m sorry. Did my tired creep through there? I don’t think they make a concealer strong enough to combat it, so I might as well be honest about it. 

Again, our reasons for traveling are solid. And I am 99% sure that our kids are enjoying themselves 95% of the time. B and I are even getting some evening time to visit with family. But damn. That saying about needing a vacation after getting home from vacation? Yes, please.

And also, this: I took it with a flash in the dark hotel room and it was the first thing to make me really laugh since earlier in the day, so I’m keeping it. Because, documentation, friends. It is possibly as vital as honesty.