THE BENEFITS OF ACCOMMODATING YOUR FAMILY DURING THE HOLIDAYS AND BEYOND

BY COREY BRISKEY, MPH

My kids were two and six months old when my husband and I packed our bags to drive from North Carolina, where we lived, to New York where most of my husband's family still resided.

i should have been excited, but I was stressed and tired from the past year. We had completed a sixweek stint in the special infant care clinic after having a premature child. Weekly follow-up appointments and therapies were piling up. I was balancing the health needs of one medically complex child with the typical needs of an older sibling, who was still just a baby herself. I was drained, but I didn't want that to stop us from enjoying the holidays, like we always had in the past, with good food and family. As we piled into the car a few days before Thanksgiving, I offered to drive, knowing I wouldn't want to do it once it got dark. About half an hour in, I felt a familiar fog envelop my brain. My vision blurred, and my eyelids felt incredibly heavy. I made it another ten minutes before admitting I needed to switch. I had made it forty minutes out of a ten-hour drive. My husband drove the rest of the way.

I'd like to say the fog lifted at some point, but exhaustion followed me every waking moment of our visit up North. It was with me at 3:45 am when my child woke, screaming and arching in pain. It was with me when relatives chatted and visited. I slapped a smile on my face and made jovial conversation, while holding and rocking a fussy baby and balancing the needs of a toddler tugging at my sweater. The fog remained heavy during bedtime when my husband and I tag-teamed with a toddler that was upset at the unfamiliar environment, and an infant that needed to be bottle fed just perfectly so he wouldn't choke and sputter. It was with me when we ate our holiday meal, played outside with the kids, and finally said our goodbyes, before getting back in the car for the dreadfully long trip home. I didn't even bother offering to drive on the way back. I knew I didn't have it in me. It was on the car ride back that my husband and I agreed, no more long holiday trips. If people wanted to see us, they could visit us. This admission of our limitations, while painful, was also freeing. Once we put down hard boundaries for ourselves, so much pressure was released. It wasn't just stressful for the parents to make these huge efforts to travel, it was stressful for our children.

ROAD TO WISDOM: "The admission of our limitations, while painful, was also freeing. It wasn't just stressful for the parents to make these huge efforts to travel, it was stressful for our children."