So I’ve been radio-silent because I went to France for a month.

With my two sons.

Where I was the only one who spoke English.

In a house occupied by two 70-year-old people whose only tolerance for children has been one freakishly-calm French granddaughter for maybe 36 hours at a time.

And I’m bringing two American boys, accustomed to burning a path of destruction everywhere they go. They break shit just to break it.

Did I mention this was for a month?

In a place where children are to be seen and not heard?

On Instagram (that frustrating filter of fabulosity), I see big ol’ bloggers who must have been sponsored to take their families to the Italian lake district and sit around taking precious pictures of their perfect lives. This, that was not.

I took my kids to the rural cousin’s house to be Daddy-Day-Camp-Counselor in order to avoid being Daddy-Day-Camp-Counselor at our own home.

In the weeks before our departure, I started to panic: What have I done? What grown adult chooses to go stay with his mother for a month?

Last February, a fellow parent asked me with desperate bug-eyes “We finally signed Jimmy up for camp. What are you doing?”

“Um, it’s February,” I replied.

“I know. We were lucky they still had spots.”

I almost got a migraine from repressing my eye-roll. ‘This is ridiculous,” I thought. “I hate playing this Type-A frenetic parenting game of shipping kids off to camp in the summer.”

But hell, now that I’m accustomed to school schedules, I don’t want to be stuck with two kids in an apt all summer, either.

So I developed the brilliant idea of taking my kids to visit relatives in France.

Even though money’s tight (TV casting directors: I’m still available!), I had enough airline miles to take my boys and me for “free” (plus $1,000 in taxes and fees. Buzz kill.) So it all seemed justifiable.

(My still-employed…thank goodness…partner joined us for the last of the four weeks.)

As the trip grew closer, my acting auditions increased. I figured the “right gig” would justify canceling the trip.

And with every audition, I weighed which was more important – making the trip or getting the job?

As if the decision was up to me. Ah, the ego with which I’m blessed.

I never had to make the decision. I didn’t get the jobs (except for a nice one-day gig on J.Lo’s Shades of Blue…look for me in the second episode of second season as a poorly-dressed child custody attorney.)

Anyway, days ticked by and I started to panic.

Was this the stupidest thing I’ve ever planned?

What adult thinks to himself, “I’ll go spend a month at my mother’s house?” except it’s not my mother, so I don’t even have the luxury of reverting back to my own petulant inner-child who becomes lazy and lets his mom take care of the kids. Plus, I’m the only one who speaks the two languages, plus they’re not used to having two rambunctious American boys running around an immaculate garden where even the grass is supposed to be admired and respected, not played on?”

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

 

To be continued…