I have been boring everyone to tears with adventurous tales of our two week vacation in triple digit heat. Several people have looked at me like I was insane and asked how in the world any aspect of our trip really could have been that much fun. I knew what they were getting at. How could that have been much fun-at my age. One person even offered that there was no way in the world she could vacation for that long with three young children under foot and she wouldn't even want to-at her age. This particular woman is just two years older I am, but her children are all adults with small children of their own.

Most people who found my vacation joy baffling told me that they just didn't believe that they had the energy or the stamina to do something like that anymore. They recalled the hassle of the packing, and getting ready, and the travelling, and the inevitable snafu, and the fast food, and on and on and on. All of which was right on target regarding our personal experience. My response was, "You just do what you have to do." To some extent I am always ripping and running with my children. It is a natural part of our lives together. The spastic vacation was just more of the same. My standard lines that I use at home (We run a circus. My life is a circus.) were just as appropriate on vacation.

Still, I guess once you've been there and done that the ooh-ahh factor eventually wears off of amusement parks, and water rides, and the zoo, and the state Capitol, and the planetarium, and the museum taken in from the vantage point of a kid's perspective. Once that happens, then it has to be harder to ignore the physical toll it all can take on you. Not so for me. I am still going there and doing that in some shape, form, or fashion year after year after year. I am still caught up in the ohh-ahhness of my childrens' lives. Perhaps that allows me to ignore the physical toll until after the fact.

Heck, at this rate I will be well into in my sixties before I will be able to take and enjoy a slower paced grown up vacation that won't leave me feeling "rode hard and put away wet" (I love that saying and had not heard or seen it written in a very long time) as my co-blogger wrote in a recent post. So for now I will get out there with the best of the young mothers and have myself a ball.

Hey, wouldn't it be a riot if being an older parent was the proverbial fountain of youth?