Written by Rachel Gorton, Bleeping Sleep Specialist

It’s Monday and I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my life to be sitting on the train on the way in to work.

You see, here on the East Coast they have this thing called February Vacation. Instead of giving the kids two weeks off of school like the rest of the country, they decided let’s have three separate weeks off throughout the year for the little rug-rats and make all the parent’s lives more chaotic.

Instead of trying to find additional childcare for the FULL week of no school, my husband and I decided to take a little vacation. We went back and forth on destinations and for a while there, the Bahamas was at the top of our list.

Too expensive.

Then it was Montreal until I looked at the average temps there…negative 10, yeah I’m all set.

So after much debate we ended on New York City. Not quite the Bahamas, but whatever.

We only had our six year old with us so I wasn’t as stressed out as I usually am about traveling with kids…

For like 5 minutes.

Traveling with kids is the worst fucking idea ever

Unless you’re going to Disney world, which is equally as annoying but at least you aren’t personally responsible for the constant entertainment. New York is just a few hours away from home for us so we drove into a little town called Beacon where we stayed the night in order to catch the train the next morning into the city. Beacon is the weirdest place ever. I’ll just leave it there.

Anyway, our Six year old did pretty good until we prepared to get off the train once we arrived at our destination. Because of his sloth like movement, it took us 5 minutes to exit the train and naturally it started moving as I was stepping onto the platform. He was behind me so I chucked my suitcase on to the ledge and pulled his arm nearly out of the socket off that train.

My husband thought that was quite funny, mainly because if it were him he might have just let the train leave with him still on it saying something like “Well that’ll teach him”.

Once we recovered from that situation we decided to walk from central station to our hotel which was about .7 miles away. Our son insisted on carrying the rolly suitcase through the streets of New York City so it only took us about 45 minutes to get there.

The Statue of Liberty was next on the list. Other than little man falling on his face in the subway because he refused to sit down, we made it in one piece. He was actually really excited about The Statue of Liberties (as he calls it) which shocked the hell out of me. He chased the birds for most of the 2.5 hours we stood in line waiting to see lady liberty. And Dad insisted on letting him get a street vendor hot dog which made me want to vom-sauce.

If you’ve never been, let me give you a piece of advice. You can see the Statue from the park where you board the ferry. Zoom in really close and it’s like you’re right there. Save yourself the time and money and spend it on a lot of alcohol.

As the day played out the following instances occurred…

• a bird attacked several dumb humans with food on the boat
•  our son crossed the gated area to get a closer look and got tackled by a security guard
•  both our phone’s died and thus we somehow lost each other for a hot minute
•  and my husband forgot his insulin so he nearly fainted which is not like you or me fainting; he’s like 245 lbs, 6’5, no big deal

The City Where He Never Eats

Once we arrived back to our hotel we couldn’t wait to relax and eat some delicious New York grub.  We ventured out to a nearby Italian restaurant that looked reasonably priced.  I got the sea-bass and my husband got the Veal Parmesan.  Both were amazing.

They didn’t have a kid’s menu (because we are the only parents who bring their young child to this city) so I ordered the little tike $15 fried mozzarella sticks.

He hated them.

We got out of there spending $125 which seemed like a huge score.

Of course we walked because why spend any money on a taxi when we have perfectly walkable legs, says my husband.  Well he ended up carrying our son most of the way to the hotel, so the joke’s on him.  I also at one time felt like I was having a massive stroke and starting feeling tingly.  You think I’m making this shit up.  I’m not.

When we arrive to our hotel, we found that the front desk sent cookies to our room for who they called our little “prince”.   Cookies at 8pm, perfect. The staff clearly knows a thing or two about bedtime and sugar. We finally climb into bed.  Ah, the first day of our vacation was over and we only had 4 more to go.

I’ll mention here we all slept in one bed because I accidentally booked the couples suite forgetting about our little prince.

After the most uncomfortable night of sleep ever, we all awake to a brand-new day. A fresh start.  At 6am.

Except I woke up wet. Completely soaked.  Drenched in…

Pee.  Pee!

My son wet the bed.

We should have gone to the Bahamas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!