Blame It on Rio

I have the hat....*

I have the sunglasses....

I have the bathing suit....**

That's right, dear readers.....

I AM GOING TO RIO!!!!

Sorry, let me collect myself.  But, finally, FINALLY, after more than a year of being a single parent one week out of every six, I get to accompany H on his next trip to Brazil.  I get to fly first class.  OK, I might have to sit in H's first class seat after we reach cruising altitude since I didn't want to spend a mortgage payment on a plane ticket.  We are attempting to use miles to upgrade, but there's a wait list.  I will wait.  Until I get to the airport and find myself either a female of gay service person and tell them my sob story.  I'll be damned if I'm not drinking champagne in a fully-reclining sleeper seat upon takeoff.

And here's where we'll be staying....

Oh, and guess who has also stayed there?

For five whole days I will be a free woman!  My days will be free to sleep late, take long runs and read.  Work events at night will require I wear my swankiest dresses and fiercest heels.  My reoccurring mental image of this trip is of relaxing in the infinity pool, drinking wine, as waves gently wash over me.  What waves? It's a pool.  Oh, wait.  Waves of guilt.  Did you think, dear readers, I would be getting off scott free? Did you think this would be un-complicated?  Ha!  The universe farts in your general direction.

When the idea for this trip was floated by H's boss, since our fourteenth wedding anniversary falls during it, we were both elated.  Somehow, my in-laws agreed to take the kids during a week when they will have to schelp everyone to school and do homework (shhh...don't remind them, maybe they were drunk and forgot), but activities would be over and the weather would be good for kicking them outside in the afternoons.  Everybody wins!

Then, just as I began to get really, truly excited and pictured my self wearing a bathing suit that's main attributes were not coverage and sturdy ties, and a glamorous sun hat that does not need to actually be attached to my head should I need to run after a child, ala the Yankee hat...there it was.  On our calendar.  Smack in the middle of our trip.

Little Man's pre-school graduation.

"Buh, buh...first class flight...infinity pool...Puff Daddy...", I muttered to the universe.  The universe, again, proved to me it had beans for dinner.  This was the ultimate in "me time" choices.  What the hell was I going to do?  Was I really going to miss my last child's graduation from pre-school?  The pre-school I had been paying exorbitant fees continuously for seven years?  The graduation that was also going to be my graduation into complete big-kid-dom?  And my poor last child.  The child who already has a pathetically small number of photographs of his life's milestones.  Was he now to be the child who, when discussing his pre-school graduations with his sisters, would be told, "Mommy and Daddy were on vacation"?

I had to ask myself, what kind of example would I be setting for my children should I make this choice and go to Brazil?

I'd be showing them that I count.

Every single mother I told my sad tale looked at me like I asked them whether I should have a drug-free breech birth or a massage.  The choice was that obvious.  Besides pre-school graduation being another "celebration of mediocrity"***, years from now, he wouldn't even remember I wasn't there.  Shit, with the hoopla my in-laws are sure to create, he won't even realize that same day.  Some perspective supported the fact that I couldn't give up five days in paradise for twenty minutes of four year-olds sticking their fingers up their noses to "Pomp and Circumstance".  By doing this, I'd be showing my kids that, sometimes, despite my life revolving around theirs, very, very rarely, my needs trump theirs.  And I think that's healthy.

So call it justification, call it selfish, call it whatever you want, but I'm going.  This is my boondoggle, my sales award, my prize, and, dammit, I'm taking it.  And if I get to dress like Sofia Vergara in a Diet Pepsi ad while doing it, even better.

*Weird, hammy arm included for perspective.  This hat be huge - and from the Kardashian collection at Sears.  I have shame...
**Bottom not shown out of mercy.
***Thank you, The Incredibles.