For the first time ever, I brought my 6-year-old son on a business trip with me. It was an event that I was overseeing, but had a crazy-strong event manager and agency on every last detail. I was really only needed for moral support and the occasional problem-solving request. The hotel where the event was taking place had a kids club for $75/day from 9-5, so I would be able to do all the conference-time work I needed to do, and would just have a few evening moments where I either needed to leave the kiddo in the room for 10 minutes or just bring him with me.
I had a romantic notion in my head that he'd have a great time playing with the kids in the kids club all day, then I'd pick him up and take to the evening events where everyone would say how cute he is and he would talk randomly about Minecraft and how much fun he was having.
We'd take walks on the beach and look for seashells, and maybe eat at the hotel restaurant by the pool. We'd order room service and watch a movie. So much fun we would have! The memories we would make!!
Here's where the fantasy unraveled: There were no kids signed up for the kid's club. He was alone with the staff member. Nothing at the restaurants even came close to anything he would ever eat. He had no interest in going to the beach, he just wanted to play on his Nintendo 3DS or play Minecraft on the computer. When I took him to the evening event, everyone DID say how cute he was, but he was too shy to respond in any way, just hid behind my leg and kept his eyes down, and told me that it wasn't his kind of party because he didn't like any of the games. And the in-room movies we wanted were nearly $20 PER MOVIE!
Truth and memories: He actually had a wonderful time with the staffers in the kids club. 1-on-1 attention was perfect for him. On our last day, there will be 3 other kids signed up for the afternoon, so the final memories of the kid's club will be perfect. We did watch a cheap $5 movie and had fun room service dinners, which really loved. I let him play Minecraft while I caught up on work emails at night, so it was a win-win for both of us. We bonded over old episodes of Full House on Nick at Nite, instead of $20 movies. The staff made him a giant tower of leftover candy from one of the evening events, which he told me the day after must have been a dream because there's no way it could have been real. And as we were going to sleep in our double beds, he whispered, "Mom, can I sleep in your bed tonight?"
That's when I knew it was a successful trip.
