500 Miles...Lord, I'm 500 Miles Away from Home

That's strictly an estimate regarding mileage and (handily enough) one of my favorite songs.

Vacation. Of sorts. 13 hour drive to unknown place with lots of glass doors, sand, and notoriously rip-current-y ocean, several days of arguing (I mean discussing) with spouse who should monitor LRHF (did I mention the private pool? and hot tub? and lampshades with glass beads on them?) and then the 13 hour drive back home to...the week-old catbox.

(Jealous yet?)

And no, of course, we could never afford this luxury. We're staying with family, very gracious family (which means not from my side), and we're all learning Very Important Lessons about vacationing with a special needs child. Am sure family is perplexed--am sure they assumed we, parents of special needs child, knew what we were doing, had taken some class in this, but this is our first vacation since before we had Big Boy, so we're um...no help at all regarding the special needs thing. No idea. Nada. Nothing. Yeah, he might make a break for it. Yeah, he could take out all 8 flat screen tvs...

(oooh, you might want to hide that. And that. Oh, and that.Just to be on the safe side, you understand...)

Then again, he might not do any of that stuff. LRHF could be totally cool. He's mercurial like that. Autism is mercurial like that. And of course, mercurial is not conducive to relaxation or fostering happy family memories.

So here we are.

Our very, very first family vacation. Maiden voyage of sorts. You know me, I never go. I stay behind to refinish floors and paint rooms and watch entire box sets of Dr. Who. And yet, here I am on vacation. With us. Part of us.

Scared of us.

And yet there is this one image that brings me and keeps me here in this fancy-ass glass-doored unknown. At some point on this day, my LRHF will see the ocean. And he will see the sand. And he will see where the two meet. And I do think, I really believe that this will be so very glorious to him that he will birdie dance himself into levitation.

So, as with so much, I am weak and scared of what I do not know. But, equally with so much, my son, my LRHF will be better than me. He will be unbridled glee and unabated wonder.

(of course, then we'll have to chase him and possibly call in professionals to lasso him right and proper, but then again, maybe not. We just don't know.)