On Travel

This is a story about how I'm not quite keeping things together at the moment.

Eli's parents arrive next week, and we have been discussing taking them to Paris since we knew they were coming.  (They have never been to Paris.)

It has not been simple, because I have not been able to tell Eli whether or not the kids and I would come or not.  Of course, the big reason that I can't go is because of work.  I've arranged for holiday the week after Easter and I'm pretty busy at work, so more days off right now would be difficult.  (Now that we have to go to the States, I might not be able to take the Easter trip anyway, so our lives are further complicated from a holiday standpoint.  We have been planning to take that April trip since January, but it is now March 11 and no trip has been booked - which is of course lucky given the trip to the States - but is indicative of our apparent difficulty actually committing to travel plans.)

But yesterday, we decided that I would swap my days off and we would leave for Paris on Saturday (a week from yesterday) and return Monday night.  I sent Hamish a quick email and confirmed that I could rearrange my schedule, and Eli spent hours researching the trip.  When he got to the Eurostar screen, to book the tickets, there was a glich and so last night about 11pm he said that he'd call today.

An hour later, I sat straight up in bed, and yelled, "TOMMY CAN'T GO TO PARIS!"  And Eli sat up also and said "What? Why? What's the matter?"  And I said, "Remember how we went to renew his passport yesterday and how he won't have one for three weeks?"

Oh my god, people.  What is my problem?  We went to the Embassy on Friday -- spent two hours there -- so what in the world was I thinking?

Obviously, this isn't my year for travel.  (Because of course now I'm sad that I can't go...)

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On Friday afternoon we went to Sophia's birthday party, and yesterday morning we went to Leon's birthday party.  We had lots of fun at both.  After Leon's birthday party, we walked up to Kensington Gardens.  Our daughter skipped her nap, and so she alternated between running as fast as she could (away from us) and collapsing in the grass to suck her thumb and feel her bellybutton.  Behold:

 Tommy's favorite statue. We had to cross the street to look at it.

And a couple from last weekend, in Parsons Green.  Would you believe that they made me pay to go on this ride as well as Lulu?

 The lady running the ride put an extra belt around Lulu.  It doesn't look very comfortable but it made me feel a lot better.  (Doesn't she look like a big girl here?)

 Rodeo-bound?

I also should mention that at swimming lessons last week, Tommy swam a whole length of backstroke all my himself!  I was screaming and clapping when he finished and I'm sure the rest of the people at the pool thought I was crazy.