I am breathing a sigh of relief. After traveling off and on for nearly three months, my husband Chuck and I are home the rest of the summer. No trips abroad, no city vacations, no professional conferences. These days, I can actually work a regular schedule, rather than squeeze my writing and editing chores into off hours at airports and in hotel rooms.

While overnights aren’t on my agenda anytime soon, everyone needs an occasional break from their daily routine – no matter how satisfying. To this end, I am an enthusiastic proponent of what I call “vacation excerpts.” A vacation excerpt is a short, jam-packed representation of any experience that makes a long getaway so memorable. Here are some examples of what I mean:

An ocean lunch in the middle of a workday. I dined on very rare tuna and hushpuppies with a friend at the Oceanic Restaurant in Wrightsville Beach on Tuesday. I was tired of editing, bored with writing and fed-up with email. Simply put, I needed an excerpt.

So my friend and I pretended we were on vacation, surrounded by young couples with kids, ladies in straw hats and pastel Lilly Pulitzer ensembles and a group of rootin’-tootin’ senior citizens who kept sampling each other’s seafood. In true vacation style, we bypassed the rice pilaf that came with our meals and ordered French fries instead.

A fast game of digital cards. Long afternoons of pinochle and hearts have been a favorite vacation pastime as long as I can remember. When I crave an excerpt, I save the file I’m laboring over, click on one of my Big Fish Solitaire icons and have at it. If I close my eyes, talk to myself and laugh at my own jokes, I could swear I’m in Nags Head playing 500 with my husband, sister and brother-in-law.

A big batch of gorp. Gorp is a confection of M&M’s, cocktail peanuts and raisins. We mixed up giant bowls of the stuff on the many family vacations we spent in Nags Head. Every night, we munched and crunched until only a few stray raisins remained. In fact, vacation week was the one time of year we adults allowed our kids to stuff themselves with junk till they turned green.

Now, a few handfuls of grownup gorp – M&M’s with smoked almonds and dried cranberries – still spark memories of salt and sweet and warm blue ocean.

A drive in the country at dusk. In Wilmington, North Carolina, back roads are never very far away. When summer’s at its hottest, my husband Chuck and I will hop into the car after dinner, wind down the windows and head toward Burgaw and thereabouts. The feel of warm, damp air in my face, the strangely pleasing scent of Confederate jasmine laced with fertilizer and shrill canine barks mellowed by distance bring me back to childhood, when Sunday drives were our only vacations.

So, there they are – my favorite vacation excerpts. My guess would be that other folks wouldn’t find it too difficult to come up with a few of their own. One thing I know for sure, I couldn’t get by without indulging in an occasional excerpt. My deadlines may not go away – but for an hour or so, I sure do.

This week, we’re packing up the ol’ auto Bon and heading down to Florida. It should make for an interesting trip… Eight hours in the car with a little boy who mumbles gibberish like an auctioneer on “the sauce.” In Grayson’s (my son) case, milk – with a dash of Nilla wafer backwash – serves as his drink of choice.

While we’re in the sunshine state, Sarah and I plan to take the boy to Disney World. I figure this can go one of two ways.

A: He loves Mickey Mouse’s army of oversized characters, and even tolerates the heat and crowds of people.

B: He becomes “that kid,” raising hell in the happiest place on Earth.

Seriously, this is the first real “vacation” we’ve taken as a family. I feel so paternal. We’ve even bought a child leash to keep Grayson in check at the amusement park. I swore I’d never tether my kid, but with his sudden bouts of running toward bright objects, we want to be extra careful.

Ahhh, what a perfect postcard: Sarah struggling to get a grip on the toddler rope and me devouring a funnel cake, grease dripping down my shirt. Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited. The fact is, we’re going on a family trip.

For some odd reason, I feel like I’ve reached a new point in life. Maybe it’s the Ozzie and Harriet Rite of Passage. There’s just something about hitting the road with the wife and kid that seems slightly momentous.

I remember my father always getting ramped up for summer getaways. He’d watch the weather channel nightly in the days leading up to our departure. I’d go with him to fill up the gas tank, check the air pressure in the tires and buy snacks for the car. I didn’t think much of these preparations, until lately.

I wonder if he was proud to be able to take his family somewhere new, different. I know he didn’t say much during the drive, other than “Damn it, Stephen, look out your window and quit bothering your sister.” Still, I now understand the sense of accomplishment – even if it’s little that he must have felt.

Alright, enough nostalgia – I need to go pick up a collar for the boy.

Mornings at the Bon house typically go something like this: My son (Grayson) wakes up around 7 a.m.; all hell breaks loose with the cats shortly thereafter. Non-stop meowing, jumping up and clawing the walls, unattended food plates knocked to the floor. It makes for a pretty nerve-racking start to the day.

Vinnie, the youngest of the two hairball bros, isn’t so much rambunctious as he is paranoid. He walks through life mired in anxiety, his face looking like he just got mugged. This is the same guy who occasionally goes primal and relieves himself on the laundry room floor. Hell, why should he overextend himself and take that extra step into the litter box? That might cut into his “me time.”

In Vinnie’s defense, these accidents only occur when the washing machine’s been running sometime in the last 24 hours. I guess the hum of a turn cycle – or mere thought of it – frightens him. Who knows? At this point, I don’t even ask questions… Just grab the paper towels, 409 sanitizer and wipe up what’s left of my dignity.

Even so, Vinnie isn’t that bad. The real problems stem from Mario – a feline version of Gallagher, who insists on destroying stuff to get attention. Maybe he’s “acting out” because of Grayson. Maybe he’s more jackass than cat. Whatever the case, his bag of shenanigans is the gift that keeps on giving.

He’s the only lactose intolerant feline I know. Every day, he leaps up onto Grayson’s highchair and licks clean yogurt cups, bowls of cereal milk, etc. He then proceeds by vomiting, not on the hardwoods (which run throughout the entire house), but on the only surface rug we own. This happens once every 24 hours. I don’t know who’s dumber: him for repeatedly lapping up the very thing that sends him into throw-up fits or us for leaving the damn stuff out.

Last week, Sarah finally snapped and declared her hatred for the whiskered hurler. While cracking open a new bottle of the 409, she blurted out, “I’m so sick of this. I swear I’m going to open the door and let him run out.”

She was very mad. I could tell because she kept repeating the same thing to an empty room. Correction. Mario was there watching her clean up his snack gone horribly awry. It was almost like he was mocking her, saying, “Yeah, I ate it, and I’m going to do it again tomorrow. You just smile, and be ready with the paper towels, sweetheart.”

Later that day, he snuck into Grayson’s room during nap time. Positioned under the crib, he waited until Sarah finally got Grayson to doze off. Minutes after she laid him down and left, Mario starts bellowing this ungodly moan. We didn’t know what it was until we realized it was resonating from the baby monitor.

“That little EXPLITIVE is going to wake up Grayson,” Sarah said before dashing off to get him out of there. When she opened the door, Mario darted under the crib once again. The next two minutes made for a battle of the ages. She’d reach for Mario with one arm, and he’d refuse to leave. After some meows and an onslaught of mumbled curse words, a broom handle shoved violently toward the cat’s body finally convinced him to move elsewhere.

The whole feud came to a head that evening. Sarah had fallen asleep on the couch. I gave her the old “Let’s go to bed” try. When I’m tired, I say it once. If there’s no takers, so be it. I headed into our room and collapsed onto the mattress, Mario jumping up and curling beside me. “This is nice,” I thought. “There’s nothing wrong with this cat – she’s the instigator.” An hour later, a boisterous rant rattled me from my sleep.

“Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?” Sarah stood yelling and pointing. “Look what he did. Are you kidding me?”

I propped myself up to see Sar staring down at a nice little pool of Mario upchuck on her pillow. I must admit, he was considerate about the whole thing, making very little noise when it actually occurred. I slept right through it.

Still, my wife was not so impressed. In fact, she was out for blood. We ultimately swapped places in bed, and I took one for the team.

The next few days following that whole debacle, Mario was smart enough to stay out of her way. As far as I can tell, relations between the two are on the mend. Nonetheless, I can’t help but worry we’re only a Yoplait cup away from all-out war.

Ever since my son’s birth nearly two years ago, I’ve noticed a gradual shift in the pace of life. Obviously, I expected this with a newborn taking over the reins. But, the changes still surprise me now and then. Actually, they outright slap me in the face.

I guess I’ve just started to appreciate the little things – my boy being one of them. Somewhere along the line, I morphed into a father. Honestly, I never thought I had it in me. But, my inner dad clawed its way through layers of bar-hopping, sports-playing, drum-slamming tissue.

I most feel the paternal takeover on the weekends. Sarah and I used to bounce from house to house, club to club – socializing. Now, we usually spend Friday nights trying to make sense of slurred gibberish. This isn’t too much different from back in the day. However this time around, the verbal slop comes from a toddler sitting buck on a potty chair, not a drunken friend.

A couple of years ago, I loved shooting some pool at Blue Post with a beer in hand. But lately, I just can’t match the thrill of “Bath Time.”  Those two words – which didn’t mean much until Grayson arrived – set off a series of events more entertaining than any evening I’ve experienced downtown.

Talk about chaos. Tell a 21-month-old he gets to sit in water for 20 minutes, and all hell breaks loose. It seems when the diaper comes off, he becomes his alter ego: the Desitin Bullet.

Everything starts with a naked streak around the house. Mumbling like an addled old man, he stumbles into the living room usually freaking out a cat or two. High-pitch shrieks, frantic flailing of arms…it’s all a part of the primitive ritual.

Eventually, we wrangle the little spaz into the tub. I kind of think I would have made a good dog catcher, but that’s another blog. From there on out, it’s all about the squirt toys, splashing, etc.

Elbows deep in bubble froth, I tend to wonder, “Why is this so much fun?” After all, there’s work in cleaning a kid who tries to pick up banana slices with his toes. I can’t explain my appreciation of these moments, other than I’ve swapped wild oats for Nilla Wafers.

During the BG era (Before Grayson), Sarah and I would stay up until 2 a.m. on a slow night. Today, we cherish our matching couch indentions. If I make it past the 11 p.m. news, it’s because of heartburn. I’ll admit, I enjoy sharing a beer with friends at my house. However, not before singing a few rounds of Row, Row, Row Your Boat for little man at bedtime.

So when I got excited the other day because Sarah bought me a tube of Aqua Fresh from Wal-Mart, I didn’t question my lameness, but rather embraced it. Yes, I hum Raffi (hippy gone kiddy megastar), have since renewed my love of raisins, get downright wired for Sunday dinners and speak cartoonese at least three times a day. I know, my life reads like a creepy singles ad on Craigslist. Still, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. (Oh yeah, I now also use clichés a lot.)

There’s something comforting about this new direction. Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t completely abandoned my nightlife ways. I can still see 25-year-old Steve ordering rounds at a local pub – he’s just a bit farther back in the rearview mirror. At the wheel now, a new 2-year-old party animal steers the way: One with an affinity for cookies, games of chase and chillin’ with his old man.