Vacation?

With all that's been going on this year I totally forgot to book our time share. We have a float week, so it's not automatically assigned, we need to book it at the beginning of the year. This year I forgot. So, several weeks ago I called up the reservation number and said "can I still book our week?" There was good news and bad news "Yes, ma'am, you can still book it, but you can't bank it". That answer meant that we suddenly had a large efficiency on the Cape for New Year's Eve. Since we had no other plans, we decided to take advantage of the opportunity to spend a few quiet days with the kids up on the Cape. Most people do not enjoy spending time in summer beach communities during the winter, but Brian and I have always loved going to the beach this time of year.
The downside was we hadn't traveled yet anyplace other than to visit family with Liam's tics this severe. When we went to Disney over the summer, there were definitely mild tics, but they were nothing like they are now.
We had a beautiful large room with a deck right across the street from the ocean. The boys immediately had to check out the deck. And of course, with his new surroundings and the excitement, Liam was squealing like crazy. For those of you who have read my blog before, you know that Liam's squealing tic is a high pitched squeal that's been compared to a whistle (not a soft whistle, a very loud shrill whistle) and someone even once thought that it was an alarm going off. The boys peered over the divider onto the next deck (as boys will always do) and found a mom and her, I'd guess, 1 year old sitting out there enjoying a meal. After the boys went in, I leaned over and explained to her that Liam has TS, and I really hope that the walls are thick so that the sound wouldn't bother them too much. She laughed and told me that she hoped the same thing for our sake because the baby would probably make just as much noise.
After we got a little bit of unpacking done, we gave in to the relentless demands to go in the pool. The tough thing about indoor pools, is the accoustics are amazing. One of Liam's triggers for his tics getting worse is excitement. Another is new places. Another is new people- especially new kids. We got to the pool and there were two people there. Both were boys about Liam's age. He was ticking like crazy. Every squeal bounced off of all the surfaces and sounded about 50 times louder. I remembered a game I used to play with my friends at summer camp where we'd go underwater and try to talk to each other. I asked him if he could try to go underwater to tic. He could get them out, and all of us would be saved our hearing. The two boys glared at him, thinking he was being intentionally obnoxious. The rest of their family eventually joined them, and I mentioned to the mom after several of Liam's tics that he had Tourette's and couldn't help the noise he was making. She looked thoroughly embarrassed and said cheerfully "oh, no problem!" I remember as an only child, always making friends with anyone who happened to be around so I'd have someone to play with. Despite Liam not being an only, he's always been very similar to me in that regard. In the past (before the tics were so severe), I'm sure he would have immediately made friends with the boys and they would have figured out some game to play that would have been infinitely more fun for 10 year old boys than playing with his "mean" older sister and "annoying" little brother.
Brian's never been a big fan of eating out with the kids. I love eating out no matter what, as long as the food is good. It's a break from the normal routine. Lately I hate eating out with the kids because it's a tough experience for Liam, much like I'm sure school is every day. He's trapped in a seat, holding in his tics. I can tell when he's starting to feel the need to tic and ask him if he'd like to use the restroom. It's infinitely more work than staying home and eating where he can tic all he wants without worrying about it. At home, the drink choices are water or milk, at restaurants it gets much more difficult. I used to have very strong feelings about handheld video games at the table, now that's out the window. Liam's tics usually totally go away while he's playing his DS, so now restaunts are a great place for him to bring in his DS.
With Liam's more severe tics vacations have changed. I'm happy that we had a "test run" of a quick, close to home 3 day vacation. Next year we'll be camping, lots of excercise and time outside will be good. We'll see where we are the year after that for our next Disney trip. Luckily while Disney is exciting, it's familiar.