Every summer for the past 14 years, my family has taken a week-long vacation in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I was 12 weeks pregnant with my third child when we started coming to Paradise Village. This particular destination is the one place my children say they get a “real” vacation, which means I let them sleep in, lay on the beach, and require no learning activities whatsoever. I was excited for this year’s trip because my four adolescents always seem to be going in different directions. It felt like a great way to reconnect and have fun together. That Saturday morning was the most relaxed drive to the airport I could ever remember. No traffic, no accidents, and no slowdowns.

Everything went smoothly. Until it didn’t.

After so many trips to the same place, my family had developed a routin

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