How I Spent....Oh, Never Mind
No-one told me that when you have a kid you lose your holiday privileges until they are in college. Gone, gone, gone, they are, as Yoda said to me in a dream.
Travelling is inevitable but it’s not like you are going to be visiting the pyramids or taking a summer home in Florence like people with nannies do. For us common folk, traveling with a toddler almost always means you are visiting family, which means the best you can do is maybe a visit to Niagara Falls if it’s down the road from Aunt Jessie. We have family spread out and none of them had met Sweetpea since we’d brought her home from China so we decided that this summer she just had to meet and spend quality time with all her aunts, uncles, grandmas & grandpas, cousins, second cousins and assorted hangers-on. Translated that meant four separate trips over an eight week period, two visits to Canada including a stint in Ontario’s northern cottage country, a five hour car ride to Central California, and one two-parter that started in Chicago and ended up in a Kansas tornado basement where Sweetpea slept to escape the heat. Add to this the joys of revisiting your own childhood angst (aren’t you the clumsy one!) while trying to put on a brave and mature face as someone’s parent yourself and you have a recipe for utter and total exhaustion. No holiday in my books.
Never mind the packing and unpacking (12 times but who’s counting), I numbed myself to it and by the end was tossing things into a giant duffle bag like I was going for a hoop shot. No, the truest and biggest mystery in family visits is why, when you have a scheduled stay in their home they steadfastly refuse to baby-proof it? It’s not like we dropped by for an quick afternoon visit….mind the crystal decanter sweetie on the bottom shelf of that bookcase, and oops, those are 25 steep stairs to the basement with a cement floor at the bottom so do be careful….I mean come on! How long can it take to sweep up the offending items up and put them away for a week or so and get a couple of baby-gates to protect the lives of the innocent? Here’s an idea, those pens that can scribble on the white sofa might be better up out of reach, and the six-pound granite coasters just made for dropping on Grandma’s toes should be stowed away for a bit. At home I don’t have to say ‘no’ very often because Sweetpea can cruise around our house in fair confidence she will return in one piece, but we encountered the flotsam and jetsom of people’s lives as a grim reminder of just how many ways one can be injured or killed in the blink of an eye.
Very relaxing for Mummy, I must say.
The best reaction I got when I complained about a porch in which the cross-braces had been removed providing ample space for a running toddler to take a header down a couple of floors to the ground was, gee, why didn’t I bring a harness? Hmmm, I should have thought of that. How fun for Sweetpea to be galloping around the house like a horse with Mummy on the other end of the reins. Has anyone seen how fast that kid can move??
As wonderful as the visit was for Sweetpea (who did lap up all the attention and open arms of her adoring family like she was to the manor born) I’ve taken a tally of the entire event and here it is by my reckoning:
The winner is.......
Hosts: Lots of baby hugs, photo ops, cute memories, and 0 personal items damaged due to Mummy’s ever-vigilant, wide-eyed, eagle stare and jump-up intervention with the running, pointing, grabbing, testing, tasting, exploring child of hers during all waking hours.
Runners Up:
Sweetpea: Ditto on the hugs, 5 nasty mosquito bites (one currently festering), 2 spider bites on the face while sleeping in said basements, two scraped knees, a shiner on the forehead, and sixteen assorted bandages reapplied liberally.
Daddy: Who came along for parts of the visits and got to play golf
Coming up the Rear and Limping Badly:
Mummy: 16 hours of total sleep over an 8 week period, a nervous eye tick, a suspiciously itchy scalp (please honey can you check for mites?), and a giant, bullseye spider bite (or maybe Rocky Mountian Spotted Fever) that won’t go away.
On the upside, I did get a fabulous list of recommended books from my aunt Liz and she has good taste. They are included here for your enjoyment since I have no time to read.
Happy summer vacation!
Aunt Liz’ Good Books List:
Balzac’s Little Chinese Seamstress
Belonging, by Isabel Huggan
The Pagan Christ, Recovering the Lost Light
Any mystery by Martha Grimes or M.C. Beaton
Travelling is inevitable but it’s not like you are going to be visiting the pyramids or taking a summer home in Florence like people with nannies do. For us common folk, traveling with a toddler almost always means you are visiting family, which means the best you can do is maybe a visit to Niagara Falls if it’s down the road from Aunt Jessie. We have family spread out and none of them had met Sweetpea since we’d brought her home from China so we decided that this summer she just had to meet and spend quality time with all her aunts, uncles, grandmas & grandpas, cousins, second cousins and assorted hangers-on. Translated that meant four separate trips over an eight week period, two visits to Canada including a stint in Ontario’s northern cottage country, a five hour car ride to Central California, and one two-parter that started in Chicago and ended up in a Kansas tornado basement where Sweetpea slept to escape the heat. Add to this the joys of revisiting your own childhood angst (aren’t you the clumsy one!) while trying to put on a brave and mature face as someone’s parent yourself and you have a recipe for utter and total exhaustion. No holiday in my books.
Never mind the packing and unpacking (12 times but who’s counting), I numbed myself to it and by the end was tossing things into a giant duffle bag like I was going for a hoop shot. No, the truest and biggest mystery in family visits is why, when you have a scheduled stay in their home they steadfastly refuse to baby-proof it? It’s not like we dropped by for an quick afternoon visit….mind the crystal decanter sweetie on the bottom shelf of that bookcase, and oops, those are 25 steep stairs to the basement with a cement floor at the bottom so do be careful….I mean come on! How long can it take to sweep up the offending items up and put them away for a week or so and get a couple of baby-gates to protect the lives of the innocent? Here’s an idea, those pens that can scribble on the white sofa might be better up out of reach, and the six-pound granite coasters just made for dropping on Grandma’s toes should be stowed away for a bit. At home I don’t have to say ‘no’ very often because Sweetpea can cruise around our house in fair confidence she will return in one piece, but we encountered the flotsam and jetsom of people’s lives as a grim reminder of just how many ways one can be injured or killed in the blink of an eye.
Very relaxing for Mummy, I must say.
The best reaction I got when I complained about a porch in which the cross-braces had been removed providing ample space for a running toddler to take a header down a couple of floors to the ground was, gee, why didn’t I bring a harness? Hmmm, I should have thought of that. How fun for Sweetpea to be galloping around the house like a horse with Mummy on the other end of the reins. Has anyone seen how fast that kid can move??
As wonderful as the visit was for Sweetpea (who did lap up all the attention and open arms of her adoring family like she was to the manor born) I’ve taken a tally of the entire event and here it is by my reckoning:
The winner is.......
Hosts: Lots of baby hugs, photo ops, cute memories, and 0 personal items damaged due to Mummy’s ever-vigilant, wide-eyed, eagle stare and jump-up intervention with the running, pointing, grabbing, testing, tasting, exploring child of hers during all waking hours.
Runners Up:
Sweetpea: Ditto on the hugs, 5 nasty mosquito bites (one currently festering), 2 spider bites on the face while sleeping in said basements, two scraped knees, a shiner on the forehead, and sixteen assorted bandages reapplied liberally.
Daddy: Who came along for parts of the visits and got to play golf
Coming up the Rear and Limping Badly:
Mummy: 16 hours of total sleep over an 8 week period, a nervous eye tick, a suspiciously itchy scalp (please honey can you check for mites?), and a giant, bullseye spider bite (or maybe Rocky Mountian Spotted Fever) that won’t go away.
On the upside, I did get a fabulous list of recommended books from my aunt Liz and she has good taste. They are included here for your enjoyment since I have no time to read.
Happy summer vacation!
Aunt Liz’ Good Books List:
Balzac’s Little Chinese Seamstress
Belonging, by Isabel Huggan
The Pagan Christ, Recovering the Lost Light
Any mystery by Martha Grimes or M.C. Beaton
posted by vallie at 11:16 AM
<< Home