This weekend, my husband and I took our older kids on a short cruise to the Bahamas. We specifically left Cameron at home so we could do some fun activities together as a family.
I shouldn't have bothered.
All my kids wanted to do the whole time was watch television in their cabin.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ncJaB80ZJxtn8LZNr40aIaSu8eekXrh1QqBUSWfX77-cO-18SSESSyXyzJVTbjGoYl5BtX5o_Q03QDVXysZvf_965YNawhayeV73PBvbVru1WzzvGvbevhkDfygSk07GbFzewPdNciac/s400/cruise)
"We didn't come here to watch T.V.," I told them. "Let's go check out the buffet or something."
I had to poke them with sticks to see if they were still alive.
"Do you guys want to go swimming in the pool?" asked my husband.
All eyes remained fixed on the television screen until my husband leaned over and turned it off.
"Hey!" they grumbled in unison. "I was watching that!"
My husband ticked off the options on his fingers. "How about ping pong?" he asked. "Or shuffleboard or basketball? At 3 o'clock, we can learn how to fold towels into the shape of animals."
There was panic and desperation in my husband's voice. For a brief moment, he thought that he had flushed several hundred dollars down the toilet. Then, out of nowhere, hope rose out of the abyss of darkness.
"I can think of something that I would like to do," volunteered Camber.
"Yes?" we asked, hands clasped in eager anticipation. By that point, both of us had cabin fever so bad that we would have agreed to sing a karaoke duet at one of the ship's bars, if that's what it took.
"We could order room service," she said with a delighted sigh.
"I officially hate myself," hissed my husband as we dragged our children, kicking and screaming, up to the pool deck.
"We're going swimming now," my husband said through gritted teeth. One by one, the children were dropped into the water.
"She's trying to kill us!" Cortlen told a fellow swimmer, pointing in my direction.
"We're having fun together as a family," I corrected.
The swimmer looked embarrassed for us.
"Why are we doing this to ourselves?" my husband asked me a few minutes later. We were sitting in deck chairs, recovering from all of the fun. Our offspring were huddled in mass in the hot tub, plotting against us.
Ten minutes later, we were back in the dungeon.
"I might not make it through this," my husband announced, moments after Camber poked her head through the door to our adjoining rooms. She had just gotten off the phone with the cruise ship operator.
"I ordered everything!" she announced, referring to the room service menu.
No good deed goes unpunished.