Ten tips for the perfect* staycation

*Only there is no such thing, especially when you have kids, so let's settle for the truth of all the highs and lows.

We’re coming to the end of MEA Weekend. If you live in Minnesota, you know exactly what this is: A professional development conference (MEA stands for Minnesota Educator Academy) in the third weekend of October.

Or more importantly: At least two days (three in some districts!) off of school for your kids right when everyone is starting to get into a weekly rhythm and routine.

Depending on the ages of your kid(s) plus what sort of flexibility and budget you have as a family, this leaves parents with a few options:

• Find alternative care or let your kids fend for themselves and proceed as if it’s a normal-ish week.

• Take time off work and plan a short family getaway that won’t seem long enough.

• Take a lot of time off work and pull your kids out of school for the full week, even though you probably just did that two months ago for a summer vacation and now you’re doing it again while also thumbing your nose at your kid(s)’ academic progress.

• Try to thread the needle: Keep the kids in school for the days when there are school. Piece together the irregular days off. Make the four- or five-day weekend special enough that your kids will remember it without turning it into a full-on vacation.

Folks: We chose the last option. All three of our kids had Thursday and Friday off, and over the course of four total days off we managed to fit in a lot.

While we never officially used the term “staycation” when my wife and I planned a whole bunch of stuff for a couple of busy but hopefully fun days, that is exactly what we attempted to have.

We’ve attempted this before, but I think we have perfected* it now.

*There is no such thing as perfection, especially with kids, so let’s settle for the truth with all the highs and lows.

Here, then, are 10 tips you can bring into your next attempt at a staycation.

1. Go somewhere novel. Our 4-year-old son has been peppering me with requests to visit faraway places lately. Dad, can we go to Africa? Can we go to Paris? How about London? My standard answer is that I would love for our family to visit all those places someday, maybe when he’s a little older, but that those trips take a lot of money and planning. But this weekend, we went to … Mankato, which a lot of people are saying is the London/Paris of southern Minnesota. The centerpiece of the trip was a tour of the childhood homes of the main characters in the “Betsy-Tacy” books, which my wife read when she was a girl and which she and our oldest daughter have been reading together for more than a year. It was a good reminder that anything new is memorable. Our oldest daughter loved it. Everyone got a couple things at the gift shop, including a pencil and notepad that our younger daughter used to start writing her observations on the trip. And our son asked if he could tell his preschool teacher about going to Mankato and about the dead deer and dented car he saw on the side of the road on the drive down. He wouldn’t have seen that in Paris or London.

2. Don’t stay overnight. Unless you want to stay someplace like a waterpark resort, here is my advice: Do not stay in a hotel. Day trips are the way to go. Hotels a short drive from your house are nice in theory to make it feel like a vacation, but usually they just wind up being annoying. You have the hassle of packing all your stuff like a regular trip, but with very little payoff. Nobody sleeps well. The kids miss the things they have at home. You wake up and go do things you could have done from your home. It’s just not worth it.

3. Pad your time. I have difficulty making it to things on time even though I am keenly aware of every minute of every day. It’s a seeming paradox, but my obsession with time makes me think I can bend it to my whim and squeeze in more things than I should, which inevitably makes me late for things (by about 10 minutes, or as my friends call it “Rand Standard Time). As a family, we are rarely on time for things because getting out of the house always involves seven calamities. But my wife has started doing this innovative thing called “lying to us” in order to help us get places on time. OK, it’s not exactly lying. But she’ll tell us something starts at 12:30 when it really starts at 1. Or she’ll build in way more time than it seems like things will take without really telling all of us. She did that with the trip to Mankato, and we were five minutes early for our reservation without having to hurry frantically. It was a wild feeling.

4. Say yes a lot. If you stay at home, you also cut down on expenses. It makes it easier to say yes to a few impulse purchases. And hopefully if you follow Step 3 and pad your time, it leaves you open to impulse stops as well. We got McDonald’s for the kids on the way to Mankato, and they begged to eat inside and run around at the PlayPlace. Normally we would be 20 minutes behind schedule and need to eat in the car. But because my wife had lied to us … er, padded our time … we said sure! On the way home, we indulged them in Minnesota’s Largest Candy Store. I said everyone can get one thing, and they said, “Great, we can get two things!” And then they tried to get three. It’s all about clear communication.

5. Eat first. We packed a lot into Friday afternoon and evening, and we thought we had a good plan. But it was derailed by hunger at multiple stops because we ate lunch too late and the kids didn’t eat that well when we did stop. On Saturday, we made sure the kids (and us) didn’t have that problem. This is just a good general life rule. Before you go somewhere, always eat first.

6. Everybody pees every chance they get. This is the corollary to eat first. On Friday, we didn’t have our son pee before we left one of our stops where bathrooms were plentiful, and then as soon as we got to the next place without a bathroom he had to go. It’s just the law that this will happen. And then he will be doing the “I have to pee dance” before ducking behind a tree while you pretend not to notice.

7. Make sure there’s something for everyone. On Friday, we spent a couple hours at the Minnesota Zoo (where we have an annual membership that’s well worth it) to appease our 4-year-old, then went to a playground that our oldest wanted to see, followed by a dinner that all of us wanted, a trip to HomeGoods (for my wife, while I sat in a chair and watched the Lynx game on my phone) and finally a movie back at home after the Lynx game was over that our middle child demanded we include. It was a lot to squeeze into the back half of a day, and it meant that they didn’t go to sleep until after 11, but ridiculous plans are my specialty and we have found that days tend to be smoother if everyone is included.

8. Don’t get stressed out by the lowlights. I thought the zoo was going to be great. It was a gorgeous fall afternoon and we hadn’t been there for a few months. We even got mini donuts right away to set the mood. But … the outdoor trail took a while to traverse … the donuts attracted bees … the sugar high gave way to crabbiness … it took too long to get back inside and eat the lunch we packed … we finally ate but it took forever and that meant we couldn’t see everything we came to see … and in general there were a lot of tears mixed in with laughs. The same thing happened at the playground, when an argument about who got to sit on what part of a giant swing turned into 20 minutes of drama. As a parent, you never imagine things like that will happen. I’m guilty in particular of creating an idealized version of how things will go, only to be disappointed when the reality doesn’t match the vision. I’m working to let those things go and just let them happen as they will. You will be better off if you do the same.

9. Let yourself be surprised by the highlights. The flip side of No. 8 is that you never know what will end up being the best part of the day. After the playground, we went to dinner. With three kids, that can sometimes be stressful. But they all ate a ton (always eat first) and loved the restaurant experience. Once we were back home, my oldest daughter — who likes playing sports but not really watching them — was riveted by the tension of the Lynx game. It was an unexpected bonding moment, and it made my night.

10. Best day ever. Our kids are not shy. They are loud. They ask a lot of questions. They have big feelings. I don’t know that they are all that different from a lot of kids, but I do know that modern parenting is exhausting. But through the highs and lows, they will let you know where things are at by yelling, “Best day ever!” at the top of their lungs. We heard that more than a few times on this long weekend, even if it was interspersed with less pleasant yelling, tears and pouty silence.

    When Monday rolls around and we get back into our routines, they will have stories to tell about the places we went and the things we saw, even if we didn’t go that far.

    And most importantly, our son will be able to tell his preschool teacher about exotic Mankato and the dead deer on the road.