Feeling hungover?

No, not the “party like it’s 1999” kind of hungover, but the overwhelming, heaps of dirty clothes, skyscraper stacks of mail, hard crash back to reality, kind of hungover.

I’m talking about the travel hangover.

Coming home after days on the road and countless miles of travel is one of the best things ever! Home sweet home! But THIS is the TRUE, embarrassing part of travel that you don’t see on Pinterest. This is the hard part.

As moms, we feel the need to post those happy, insta-filtered trip photos within minutes of getting home. We feel like losers if we crash into our comfortable beds before we clean up this kind of mess. We feel even worse when we dig through this stinky suitcase explosion looking for something that could pass as clean enough for daycare, because we’re too tired to wash it all before morning.

Let me be the first to say, it’s time we give ourselves a little grace. Traveling with little ones is not just an adventure, it’s downright hard work. From the planning to the packing, from the tickets to the travel, from the hustle to the hangover, THIS is what travel really looks like.

So listen, it’s ok to take a moment to regroup. It’s ok if those cute videos wait a couple days to reach your adoring Facebook fans. It’s ok to let the suitcases spill all over the floor for a few days. It’s ok to unplug.

Give yourself a much deserved pat on the back for successfully completing another trip. Relax a little bit, order take-out and even eat two desserts as a reward. Tomorrow you can go back to being a superstar travel mom again, but today, you have permission to nurse the hangover.

How do you recover after a trip? Share your tried and true tips!