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@the-cardigan-queen
We ended up having to take a bus to Madrid instead of the train weād had planned because those travel plans involved someone driving us from the tiny town we were going to to view the eclipse to where we were meant to catch the train and that someone is currently in Maine. We had to choose between seeing the eclipse in totality or the train and, obviously, we chose eclipse becauseā¦
Worth it.
I had a panic attack in a train station this morning but this evening I got to see a total solar eclipse so, on the balance, a pretty amazing day.
My body does not think itās 6 am (the time at home) or noon (the time where I currently am) but rather a secret third thing (tired and disoriented and a little bit nauseous).
On the other hand, weāve been here 24 hours and Iāve walked more than six miles, eaten pan con tomate and a great deal of cheese and jamĆ³n, navigated shoe shopping in Spanish to buy the avarcas Iāve wanted for ages and stumbled upon a street festival with live music and beer. My body may suck at travel but the rest of me is pretty good at it.
My body does not think itās 6 am (the time at home) or noon (the time where I currently am) but rather a secret third thing (tired and disoriented and a little bit nauseous).
Is there any nap better than the nap after an overnight flight and a few hours wandering around? Probably, but itās truly a top tier nap. Genuinely transformative.
Weāre in Spain! Itās beautiful and quite warm! And in our flurry of last minute planning and booking we accidentally booked our first hotel starting tomorrow and not today! Oops. But itās sorted and we only have two more, very sleepy hours until we can check in and take a much needed nap. I canāt wait.
Weāll be staying in three different cities- well, two cities and one small seaside adjacent town- which is about my limit for location changes in a week of travel. We hadnāt been planning on spending even a full day in Madrid, just a half day then staying the night and flying home in the morning so itāll be nice to spend a bit more time there and actually explore the city a bit. Weāre flying in to where our friend lives but since heās not there weāll only stay for a couple days and then move on. Iād been looking forward to having a local guide but weāre pretty resourceful. I do wish Iād retained more of my Spanish but I always wish that.
So the friend weāre traveling to Spain to see next week is officially not going to be in Spain next week. We may catch him on his return trip in Madrid but who knows (and maybe also who cares). Iām pretty pissed and my husband is hurt because obviously itās not his fault that a family friend died or that his family expects him to drop everything and fly back to the states (once again) but he doesnāt seem to have thought much about us in all this. I really donāt think he understands what a big deal this trip is for us, not so much in terms of money- although not not in terms of money- but how much effort went into coordinating the flights and a week off of work for both of us and work coverage for while we were away and a week of childcare from my in-laws. A lot of people arranged a chunk of their summer for this and heās just like āwe can reschedule.ā No, we canāt! And we donāt want to! If Iām being perfectly honest, this would not have been our destination of choice for our first actual vacation in eight years. It doesnāt even crack the top ten. Like, maybe Madrid but not Santiago de Compostela which seems perfect lovely but is a pain to get to and the main draw (if youāre not visiting expressly to see an old friend who wonāt even be there) is being the end point of the Camina de Santiago which I donāt really care about. Weāll pivot and make the most of it because thatās what we do but it really is so disappointing.
Last night the husband and I talked about our feelings (not great!), split a xanax because we were both a jumble of anxiety and booked hotels. Previously, Iād had close to zero involvement in the planning of this trip but by the time we went to bed I had an annotated map and a multi-tab itinerary spreadsheet. Because I know how to have a good time.
I did have a moment last night when I thought ādoes our friend even live in Spain? What if this is all an elaborate lie and he never even left Boston?ā and now I canāt quite shake that thought. I may have listened to too many podcasts about scammers and fabulists.
I told my mom about the situation and her immediate response was ādoes he have a secret life he doesnāt want you to know about?ā
Itād be funnier if my husband wasnāt heartbroken about not seeing his friend or, at least not getting the week long visit theyād planned.
I did have a moment last night when I thought ādoes our friend even live in Spain? What if this is all an elaborate lie and he never even left Boston?ā and now I canāt quite shake that thought. I may have listened to too many podcasts about scammers and fabulists.
Weāre leaving for Spain on Sunday to visit my husbandās best friend and said friend called this afternoon to say that we may need to cancel our trip because a close family friend died and he may need to fly to Maine for the funeral. I feel a tiny bit guilty that my first coherent statement was āIām not cancelingā but Iām not. I want to see him, I hope we get to see him, but if this ends up being a week of my husband and I tootling around Spain without our kids then so be it. Summer has broken me and Iāve been holding on the thread of a my first actual vacation in eight years and Iām not giving it up. I canāt. I need this.
I love how swift and emphatic the āDO NOT CANCELā responses came in and weāre definitely not canceling. It was never on the table as far as Iām concerned.
To his credit, my husband had already explained to his friend that weāre not canceling our travel and checked out hotels before he told me about this development (I had a hellaciously stressful day yesterday so he thought it could wait until we got home and he was correct). We were meant to be staying with them and then traveling to Madrid together so itās not ideal but weāre fully capable of figuring out travel and lodging ourselves even on short notice. Hopefully, weāll at least get a couple days with him and who knows, maybe this is much ado about, well, not nothing because someone he was close to has died in possibly very bad circumstances but nothing that will materially impact this trip. Iām just going to listen to my Rick Steves podcast and make my packing list and hope for the best.
Weāre leaving for Spain on Sunday to visit my husbandās best friend and said friend called this afternoon to say that we may need to cancel our trip because a close family friend died and he may need to fly to Maine for the funeral. I feel a tiny bit guilty that my first coherent statement was āIām not cancelingā but Iām not. I want to see him, I hope we get to see him, but if this ends up being a week of my husband and I tootling around Spain without our kids then so be it. Summer has broken me and Iāve been holding on the thread of a my first actual vacation in eight years and Iām not giving it up. I canāt. I need this.
Tonight, my big kid decided that bedtime was the best time to inform me that a full bottle of sunscreen had emptied into his backpack and then start unpacking sunscreen covered item ONTO OUR SOFA. Summer cannot end soon enough.
When my sister-in-law was here last month while I was in Chicago, I gave her free reign to tidy and organize the living room since itās basically the playroom at this point and, honestly, it could use a good tidy. Well, I came home to the living room looking better than it has in ages (and the dining room looking worse which I didnāt think was possible) but it wasnāt really a sustainable tidy; she obviously starts grouping things like with like but then just starts making piles to get things out of the way and what weāre left with is a room where we canāt find things and thereās no obvious spot to put stuff back. So it looked great for a couple days and now itās maybe worse than it was before.
However, the real issue is that we have a number of toys that we keep in the basement because the kids (mostly the 3yo) canāt have them unsupervised and/or we donāt want them in the room with the āniceā rug because they can be used as a weapon or make a big mess or have lots of tiny pieces we donāt want to lose. But she brought a bunch of that stuff upstairs and left it there when she left and the kids keep finding it before I do which is how I ended up vacuuming up bright green kinetic sand out of our rug because she got her hands on a sensory box thing while I was starting the laundry. The other day, they decided to use the poles from this fort building kit as swords while I was making dinner and weāre lucky no one lost an eye.
I know my mother-in-law had a talk with my sister-in-law a few years ago about how nannying and babysitting arenāt the same as parenting when she kept trying to give me āhelpfulā advice that I didnāt want or need. My thinking about the difference boiled down mostly to the fact that the priorities are different and parenting is a long game that you canāt clock out of in a way childcare isnāt. Like, it doesnāt help me to make elaborate routines out of meals to get them to eat lunch because I canāt recreate that for every meal, every day; Iām better off waiting out the hunger strikes and since no oneās going to fire me if I donāt get them to eat a proper meal, I can do that. Similarly, I donāt want to give them nonstop activities because I need them to learn how to entertain themselves and my job doesnāt depend on keeping them entertained or making sure they learn something.
But what I hadnāt really thought about and what she obviously hasnāt is that when sheās watching kids- mine or someone elseās- thatās really all sheās doing. I mean, I know some of the nanny gigs she had called for making meals for the kids and doing their laundry but some didnāt (private chef and maid) and even the oneās that did didnāt expect her to plan or shop for meals. When weāre home with our kids weāre also cooking the meals I planned and shopped for (usually with kids in tow) and doing laundry and yard work and assembling furniture and all the other million things that have to be done. And thatās why the kinetic sand lives in the basement! And why I need them to be able to entertain themselves! Because this is my life and not a job, all that stuff thatās not watching and entertaining them is also part and parcel of taking care of them. I have two close friends who were nannies for years- one of them live-in- and neither of them seem to be confused by this difference so I think this is just a her issue.
Anyway, I was hoping to get a pedicure this afternoon but I think instead Iāll be scouring the dining and living rooms for supervised play only toys that have been tidied into corners before we have a real disaster on our hands.
Yāall, I think Iām dying (my tummy hurts and I have a low grade fever)
Last week, my daughter emptied a full container of bright pink edible shimmer and yesterday she broke a full bottle of oregano so now our kitchen looks like we slaughtered a unicorn in there and smells like we cooked it up in an Italian stew. Life with toddlers is never dull!
How old were you when you first had a grandparent die?
I wasn't born yet
less than a year old
1-5 years old
6-10 years old
11-20 years old
over 20 years old
I don't know/it's complicated
results/no grandparents have died yet
