This is a selfish post. I need to remind myself why<\/em> I do all this. I am in the throes of packing and prepping–mentally and physically–for a 6-week European trip to 6 countries with our family of 6. And it’s not pretty! My house is a wreck, my mind is a mess, my to-do lists have to-do lists, and my husband is tired of my “what if” game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember distinctly the moment I realized the answer to the big question “Why travel with kids?” And yes, it involves Grandma’s swimsuit… in an elevator… in the Bahamas… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January of 2018, we traveled to the famous Atlantis waterpark resort in the Bahamas for my sister-in-law’s destination wedding. It was January in North Carolina and no one was using swimsuits so that was the first bag I packed. It was the pretty red bag that I filled to the brim with suits, coverups, goggles, pool toys, and flip-flops. It was the bag I set to the side, proud to be ahead of the game. It was the bag that got left at home. We showed up at the waterpark resort with our 4 kids with no swimming gear! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was pretty distraught, but we went into problem-solving mode. The boys, including my husband, had gym shorts that could serve as swim trunks. Our youngest daughter was little enough for a swim diaper and t-shirt without being looked at askance. We texted family. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law immediately responded that they had packed multiple suits and they would share them with me and my teen daughter, Celeste. My brother and sister-in-law still in Florida agreed to see what they could find at Target before flying the next day. So we had a plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later that day, clad in our mishmash and borrowed swim gear–no coverups and wearing our tennis shoes– we headed to the pool and the epic water slides. We were a ragtag group at a fancy resort. In the elevator, I turned and looked at my daughter and made a snarky comment about my borrowed suit not really fitting right. Her response, “I don’t even want to hear it, Mom! I’m literally wearing my grandma’s swimsuit!” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I laughed until I cried. She was 15 and wearing her grandma’s swimsuit. Now, fortunately for her, Grandma is a young and stylish, “cool” grandma so the suit was not horrendously embarrassing, but at the oh-so-delicate age of 15 when appearances mean so much, Celeste was definitely out of her comfort zone, to say the least. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, Grandma’s Swimsuit has become the personification as to why I continue to travel with my kids. What did they learn? They learned that life throws you curveballs and you have to solve problems. To solve those problems, you need to be flexible. It certainly isn’t going to be what you expected–wearing Grandma’s suit was not in the plans for her Instagrammable Bahamas resort pics that were supposed to make all her friends jealous. She had a choice to make–roll with the unfortunate circumstances and make the best of it or sit in the room and sulk. I am so proud of her for wearing Grandma’s suit so she could hit the water slides. The resiliency and flexibility will serve her well in life. Travel has a way of pushing you outside your comfort zones. Even when traveling goes as planned, at the very least everything is different than what you have at home–your schedule and activities change, you eat different food, sleep in new beds, in some cases the language is different… and sometimes you have to wear Grandma’s swimsuit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just so you know how the story ended, my sister-in-law found swimsuits for the girls at Target in Florida and brought them the next day. She did an amazing job and Celeste rocked that suit. Thank you, Celeste, for learning how to adapt to anything we throw at you and for wearing Grandma’s swimsuit so we could enjoy Atlantis. Thanks for letting me share the story too. I won’t go so far as to post pictures of you in Grandma’s suit, but here’s an Instagrammable pic in the suit Aunt Jessica bought for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It helps to be young and gorgeous and look awesome in anything you wear! Me, not so much…. Did I mention that I was being super flexible too…. wearing my mother-in-laws swimsuit for the whole trip? And I don’t have the looks to pull it off quite like Celeste. I was definitely reminded of the adaptability required when traveling too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So, here I am reminding myself again as I pack for our next adventure–you won’t remember everything–the fam still likes to ask me if I remembered “the red swim bag”! You can’t predict everything that might happen, you will never win the “what-if?” game… and the best part is, you don’t have to! No matter what happens, we will find a way to roll with it and solve the problem, even if it means wearing Grandma’s swimsuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a selfish post. I need to remind myself why I do all this. I am in the throes of packing and prepping–mentally and physically–for a 6-week European trip to 6 countries with our family of 6. And it’s not pretty! My house is a wreck, my mind is a mess, my to-do lists…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memories-and-musings","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/familytravelrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/familytravelrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/familytravelrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familytravelrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familytravelrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/familytravelrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210,"href":"https:\/\/familytravelrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/familytravelrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familytravelrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familytravelrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}