Vacation booked

Today, we made the preliminary plans for our Spring Vacation trip to Yosemite. Three nights there, one in Lake Tahoe and two in Lone Pine because I want to see Mono Lake. The Tioga Pass is closed until the end of May because of the snow. We may take a mini trip there in the summer. I know my husband wants them to see it...maybe if we can pay down the debt enough by then. I love having credit. Our hotel rooms are reserved three months ahead of time JUST because we are creditworthy. Rather, that we seem creditworthy. I think we had two dollars available on the card we used to book the rooms.

I don’t think my mother or father had credit cards until I was in my twenties. Our family never went anywhere or did anything together except fight. I want so much for the kids to have better memories than that. My husband and I work our butts off to give them that. The vacation every spring is the first priority of the bonus check money after the many and sundry doctors get paid. It's so important to have this time together away from everything else. The kids will probably bitch a lot for a few years about the trips they were forced to endure, but I’m hoping that as they get older it will be one of the bonds that hold them together and urge them to seek each other out in times of trouble or when they want to share good news, and I’m hoping the time we put into it will be vindicated when they have families of their own and drag their own children off on trips.

If we can manage that, it will be one more pulverized link in the chain of abuse which has plagued my family for generations. My husband and I are building a family from scratch, employing the strategies of his parents and our own good instincts to repair the damage done by my parents and stop the disease from infecting any other children in my line. My children are happier and their children will be happier.

People say that all I am is a stay at home mom, but that’s enough for me. There will be time later on for me to fulfill myself, actualize myself as a woman. Gag. Other people tell me I am their hero for how hard I fight for my kids and what I sacrifice for them. I don't get either opinion. I don't begrudge having to put off time for me and I don't think I'm exceptional because I love and fight for my kids. That's my job. That's what all parents are supposed to do. I can't think of anything better I could be doing with my time giving it to our kids and making for them, as much as possible, the life all kids deserve to have and giving them a better example so they will not have to struggle so hard as parents, will not have so much to learn on their own.

Yeah. I can live with being just a stay at home mom. And if it isn't too much to ask, I would REALLY like a mini van.