Friday, August 24, 2007

By Request

I said this first sentence to a friend of mine some time ago and she asked me to turn the sentence into a blog entry...so here you go...

My parents took me to Hawaii when I was in the 6th grade. The two things I remember most about that trip were getting to chew on sugar cane every time I turned around and always having a parrot on my shoulder.

Being the sophisticated 12 year old that I was, I would always order Shirley Temples at every restaurant we ate at. Well in Hawaii instead of just a cherry on a plastic sword, they served cherries on a piece of sugar cane. I thought it was the most marvelous thing ever. Well, next to the parrots. You see one of the biggest tourist gags in Hawaii is getting your picture taken with a brightly colored parrot sitting on your shoulder or arm. The birds do really sweet things like give you “kisses” which actually translates into being alarmingly afraid that the bird is going to snip the end of your nose off or give you a new ear piercing. But I thought it was just about the coolest thing ever. So I always posed for the pictures and my parents never bought even one. By the time we left I was positive that thanks to them I had racked up the worst tourist karma ever.

Twelve is an awkward time to go on vacation with one’s parents. Especially when said twelve year old has recently decided that nature is no longer even in the realm of cool. I grew up going camping and fishing, essentially being totally enthralled with all things outdoors. I loved nature, I even liked bugs. But when I hit 12, as my mom puts it, it was like some strange pre-pubescent alien took over my body and who I was pre-twelve simply ceased to exist. I started wanting to wear make-up. I asked to go bra shopping (even though I didn’t really need to wear a bra until much, much later). I started disobeying my parents both secretly and directly to their faces. I started noticing boys. I started using gel in my hair and not minding being in dresses.

I look back at that time now and it was no wonder that my parents had no clue what to do with me. And to top it all off, I did just about everything within my power to ruin that family vacation to Hawaii. I was rude and melancholy. I didn’t want to go see the frickin’ rain forest. I didn’t care if I saw one stupid waterfall the whole time I was there. All I wanted to do was lie on the beach, suck on sugar cane and if I had to go anywhere, please put a parrot on my shoulder.

I remember walking through some of the most gorgeous scenery looking at my feet. I remember my parents waking me up well before dawn to go see a sunrise on top of a volcano and I stayed in the car the whole time until they drug me out just in time to see the sun peek over the horizon. My god it was amazing, but all I was thinking about was when I got to go back to sleep. My goodness I was a brat.

So we are getting ready to go on our first family vacation in a couple of weeks and I’m so nervous. Granted my kids are only almost 4 and 15 months, but believe me when I say the 4 year old is already truly skilled in the art of attitude. I guess that I can see now that my parents’ disappointment in that vacation and me was two fold. Number one they were disappointed that their sweet little girl was such a holy terror. Number two they were disappointed that the vacation that they had so painstakingly planned turned out to be not so much fun for me.

I desperately want my family to have fun on our vacation. It’s really important to me that everyone has a blast and that fond memories are made. Even if 20 years from now my husband and I are the only ones who remember them. I want my kids to have their sugar cane and parrots.

1 Comments:

Blogger Meg said...

They'll love it, I know it! And if they don't... I know where you can get some parrots, cheap. Cheep! heheee.

12:13 PM  

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