Best.Weekend.Ever.

Two weekends ago, we took our boys to Great Wolf Lodge. We had planned the same trip last winter which was foiled not once but twice by ear infections. So it was no surprise on Saturday afternoon, when my older son began to complain about his ear. After a visit to the Urgent Care, we managed to get the antibiotics he needed to halt the ear infection in its tracks. We departed Sunday morning; my brother-in-law's family following us on the highway. About an hour into our drive, my husband seemed agitated as he pulled off the highway. He wasn't feeling well and wanted me to drive the rest of the way to the resort. Twenty minutes later, he was heaving out the window of our car onto the highway. Hoping it was something he ate, we took our boys to the water park, but a few hours later it was painfully clear, my husband was the victim of an evilly, ill-timed stomach bug.

While I do not believe in Hell, if Hell does exist and I end up there, I guarantee Hell is not going to be hot. Nope, Hell for me is two things--cold and moist. As I stood in the wave pool, my eyes nervously darting back and forth between both of my boys, shivering in my bathing suit, trying to convince myself that I was not taking a communal bath with the hundred other people in the wave pool as band aids swirled in the water, I contemplated switching places with my husband.  When it comes to the stomach virus, I'm Katniss Everdeen. I volunteer as tribute for the Reagan District. I feel I handle the stomach flu with relative grace and appreciate the slimming effects of a good stomach bug. After eating at the buffet and dropping forty dollars in the arcade in less than an hour and coming away with a slap bracelet, bouncy ball and three Tootsie Rolls, I couldn't wait to crawl into bed and watch the Oscars to see the winners from all the movies I hadn't seen. Just as I settled into bed, my husband resting peacefully after a tumultuous afternoon spent in the hotel bathroom, my boys began to complain from the pull-out couch that they couldn't fall asleep because of the light from the TV. I settled for reading about the Academy Awards via social media. A few hours later, I was awakened by the restless flopping of my younger son and discovered him shivering, the covers wrapped around his older brother who was laying horizontally across the bed. I moved my younger son into my bed and spent the remainder of the evening dozing between kicks. The following morning, I returned to the cold, moist wave pool but enjoyed a short reprieve when my two-year-old nephew's warm urine trickled down the side of my body.

In contrast, this past Saturday, before seeing a matinee at the Walnut Street Theater, I enjoyed a pleasant lunch with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law at Talula's Daily. Post show, I met my husband for dinner at Maggiano's, and then we met up with some of my husband's work friends for drinks and enjoyed some live music performed by one his colleagues. In the morning, as I chatted with my hairdresser and enjoyed a Dunkin Donuts coffee, I contemplated how I was only a book and a three mile run away from the "Best.Weekend.Ever."

At Maggiano's, my husband and I talked about the family style dinners we had once enjoyed there with our friends before any of us had children. I thought about all those weekends we spent eating and drinking at non-chain restaurants, seeing the majority of the films nominated for Academy Awards outside the animation category, and blaming a bad night's sleep on too much wine. Those were the days.

But those days pale in comparison to my son's expression of joyful disbelief as we entered the water park, prompting a stranger to say, "That face is priceless." Those days pale when compared to the squeals of delight as my boys bobbed gleefully through the waves. And as we pulled out of Great Wolf Lodge on Monday afternoon, and my son uttered an unsolicited thank you for a fun trip, well, I guess it was a fun overnight with a few minor hiccups. And those hiccups make for a better story and ensure we'll never forget the perfectly imperfect "Best.Weekend.Ever."