metaphortunate: (Default)
metaphortunate son ([personal profile] metaphortunate) wrote2014-07-29 01:54 pm

vacation!

Q: How was your vacation?

A: Ten days eight timezones away, with me and Mr. E plus both kids plus the in-laws, every single one of us getting sick, except me who was sick when I left, stayed sick the entire time because you can’t get better when you don’t get any sleep, and am still sick? Staying in a B&B so filthy there were actually insects in the bed, because there literally wasn't another free pair of rooms in town, so we came home to do a full bedbug decontamination on all our stuff instead of resting? That vacation?

Q: Yeah, that one.

A: Well, first let me say that I recognize that I am a very lucky woman. I’m in a position to take a vacation, which not everyone is. And I’m lucky that I have in-laws who are willing to pay their own way to come on vacation with us just to hang out with the grandkids, without which I honestly do not know what I would have done; because even with them, two days into it I would have cracked and tried to change our plane tickets to come back home right away, but I couldn’t because I was too sick to fly. And I’m lucky to have two kids who have such vibrant good basic health that even when they develop a 3-pack-a-day cough and pour snot out like giant ambulatory faucets, it doesn’t sap their energy or slow them down in any way. And hey! The baby is clever enough that at just over 10 months, he has worked out that he can avoid having his nose wiped, which he hates, by smearing his face all over our shirts the moment he feels snot on his face!

So all in all, vacation was absolutely better than childbirth, I would say. Though it did last longer. And I might even be willing to take another vacation again someday.

Not, like, soon, though.
amaebi: black fox (Default)

[personal profile] amaebi 2014-08-04 11:13 am (UTC)(link)
(I didn't hold babies much before I became a late-breaking mother. I was a little overly respectful of their too-often ignored personal boundaries before I'd put my elbow in my baby's chest to change him in my lap. But once I was bolder in baby-holding I found that every baby has its own characteristic posture! Fancy that!)

Chun Woo and I tended to try to work from agreement,and usually could. When it came to mucus extraction, though, we just disagreed. He gave me to understand that he would prefer to be stopped up forever,and I overrode him. He protested, I applied a headlock and proceeded, narrating how much longer this took and how much more unpleasant it was due to his squirming. And then it would be done.