Have a crabby travel baby? It can get better.

"It all comes down to you. It depends on you to keep everything together," I told a little boy of about 5 or 6 at 10:30 p.m. on Sunday night. He and his little sister, maybe 2, were waiting with their parents for their delayed late night plane at the Charlotte airport. You could tell his sister was running on fumes, that kind of silly-wiggly-sloppy that is going to melt down before too long. The boy had that heavy-is-the-head firstborn seriousness of knowing that my eldest son and I both understand. I was mostly joking to the little kid but also it was kind of true. Our job is to lay low and let the diva child pull focus and then collect our good behavior reward later.

Our own flight got out to Chicago at about 12:30 a.m. We had gone to Costa Rica for spring break and the delayed layover felt like a small price to pay for eschewing horrible lines or major breakdowns or difficulties. Since it was a family trip there was a lot of "Mom, can we go to the pool?" (pre- 7 a.m. before I'd had my first sip of coffee) or "Mom, will you play football with us?" followed by "You need to hold your arm back more when you throw. No, not like that." I at least got out of hot-beach bodysurfing observing duty. But was a family trip and so we had to family.

In comparison to the past, it went so much more smoothly than trips where our younger son in particular had some rocky adjustments to time zones, nap times, sitting still at restaurants and on a plane, etc., about when he was the age of that little girl in the airport. I have a photo of him crying in the backseat during one vacation that I am not posting here because I'm a really good person and respect his/my dignity but here's another photo (I may have shared before) where he was not remotely welcome to hang on me this way (on an old timey train in New Hampshire for some reason) and I was on the verge of losing my shit.

But finally we had a trip where everybody slept pretty well, nobody got sick (!), nothing of value was lost, we broke just one boogie board, and I only called my son an asshole to his face one time (okay, two times, but in one sentence) when he thought it would be funny to try to get the elevator doors to close on me after a long day of doing shit for him/spending money on him.

If you're out there and have a younger child who has not been the easiest traveler, tends to not be shy to pull focus and drag everyone down with them in public as necessary, I am here to tell you that it can get better. Of course in my case it takes some combination of learning, aging, medication/therapy and concessions (6:30 a.m. morning we're flying out: "Can I have these Oreos for breakfast?" "No. Well... whatever.") This year my early riser kid and I had a nice time sitting together reading in the morning (instead of me trying to keep him quiet to let everyone sleep). He ordered his food and said please/thank you and the only time he laid on the floor at a restaurant was not to have a fit but to pet a cat. He wasn't even too sloppy when we finally got home at 2 a.m.

Our kids' (retired, volunteer) art teacher has gently roasted the school population for taking kids on fancier spring break trips than when he was a kid and I get it. In this case I justified a bigger trip to myself since our older son is starting high school next year so it's the last year their schedules will definitely be the same, and after my rough Christmas I just wanted to remove myself from the area for Easter.

This crazy way we lucked out solidified the decision: A few months ago I was chatting with a school mom at a 5th grade basketball game and said I was musing about going to Costa Rica but wasn't sure. She said casually "Oh my mom bought a place there after Trump was elected; you can use it if you want."

Maybe earlier in my life I would have been too polite to say yes to this. Of course I said I couldn't possibly but she said "No, really, I'm serious." This mom is really nice (obviously) and fun to talk to/shoot the shit with during a basket/volleyball game but we have never socialized outside of school. Our kids have never been to each others' houses. This was too generous. How can I possibly make something like this up to someone? I mentioned this exchange to my husband who said "Are you kidding? Let's do it." Then I remembered an old movie quote:

Thus, we had a great place to stay and it also solved the issue of deciding what to do (ride horses, tour rainforest, zipline, swim, surf, see a waterfall)/where to stay (Jaco). I did some research because I like to but there was a binder in the home where we stayed full of recs of whom to call for this and where to go for that. Having your options narrowed for you by someone with experience was the ultimate vacation.

I don't want to barrage you with annoyingly sunny/verdant vacation photos but here is a cool pic my husband took of my kid surfing:

We had a lot of memorable adventures as well as moments of personal bravery and natural awe: pura vida stuff. A solar power charge-up. Also I think my kids possibly finally learned the hard way that I don't harp on them about sun protection just to be a nag.

A witchy moment: On our ziplining tour I got to chat with a mom of two boys who was traveling solo as a treat to herself after getting divorced. I was like "I just met you but I love that for you." Her name was Taylor and she was very muscular and had distinctive tattoos of Freddie Mercury and a cat. My sons later referred to her as "buff."

I'm glad we said yes to the opportunity to take this trip (I'm glad Taylor did, too.) I'm glad my kids are a little older and at a sweet spot where they are young enough to be delighted by the power of ocean waves but strong enough to handle them (those many mornings coaxing reluctant kids to YMCA swim lessons may actually pay off, even if they somehow always have to take a poop right when class starts). I did see some moms pushing their strollers through the rainforest so I was glad to be past pushing age, diaper age. You can simultaneously look back at old photos and think "I can't believe he was so cute and little" and also (if you are fortunate to have a child who can) be glad they wipe their own butts and order their own food and get better at keeping their shit together. I have experienced it, it's possible!

End credits

Thanks for reading Evil Witches, a newsletter for people who happen to be mothers. In the past I have written about traveling with kids and also skipping family holidays for your mental health. Oh also this is fun I saw that Slate mentioned our Barf Badness bracket in their podcast! Anyway if you enjoyed this issue and want to show some love outside the paid subscriber model you can drop a tip.

Just a reminder you can get 20% off your first month of Faye if you use the code EVILWITCH20. (I will get a little kickback if you use that code). You can read my original unpaid Faye endorsement here. Recently our Faye consultant has been helping us track down a doctor for my husband since we recently switched insurance plans. Wouldn't you love to offload that kind of task??

Finally, you can also find me talking here on this podcast: If you're a paid reader and want access to the subscriber only audio stuff let me know! Per last week if you reached out to me in the last couple months and didn't hear back, I did not receive replies to newsletter issues so I may have missed it so don't be shy about following up!

One witchy thing