Skipping Town

Bit #1 Greta dramatically rejected dinner this past weekend. Andrew made reubens and declared the girls, too, would eat reubens, ignoring the obvious outcome, which would be that they'd hate the rye bread, coleslaw, and thousand island dressing, not to mention the pastrami. Lucia, surprisingly, nibbled at her sandwich with only moderate complaints. Greta, however, vehemently HATED the sandwich, and she loudly listed all the things she hated about it, including the "rice bread" and "ham sauce." "I HATE THIS RICE BREAD. I HATE THE HAM SAUCE." We've never referred to thousand island dressing as ham sauce but will likely do so from now on. Bit #2 Is there anything worse than your kid getting off the bus and melting into a sobbing heap as soon as she sees you? Lucia got off the bus yesterday and dissolved into hysterical crying at the bus stop, struggling to explain that her two tiny beloved furry Hatchimal Colleggtibles, which she took to school ...

Tuesday 4/10 Tuesday morning Andrew went for a swim in the lap pool, and then I went to a poolside yoga class. The instructor was a weather-beaten, long-haired, crystal-wearing type who advised us, in what seemed like purposefully broken English, to do deliberate breathing at sunrise, on either side of noon, and at sunset, and as a result we’d be able to see new things, even new colors. I’m in. We ordered room-service breakfast, which was arriving just as I got back to the room. The waiter set up our big dining table as though we were in a restaurant. Then we headed to the pool for a long morning of swimming, popsicles, and lunch. We had pool chairs right next to the pool, which was great. L&G and I took a sun break at 10:30 to do some pottery painting, which was much more expensive than I’d anticipated but which we all loved. There were two big tables of unpainted pieces which had been prepared with black painted outlines, so it was like painting a 3D coloring book. ...

Saturday 4/7 We left NJ for Cancun early early Saturday morning. The airport was not fun (Greta lost the headband her American Girl doll was wearing; tears etc; I tried to go back out beyond security and was refused) and neither was the plane (Lucia threw up, as per usual, on the bumpy landing). But then we were there, and it was WARM, and that alone was amazing. Our driver greeted us outside the airport with chilled towels and waters before ushering us to the resort in a luxury vehicle of some kind. Note: This is not our usual type of vacation. Our usual type of vacation involves excavating mouse carcasses from hundred-year-old umbrella stands and the kids getting stung by wasps in their beds. Anyway, also amazing is our suite at the resort in Riviera Maya, which is basically two suites connected by a foyer, tons more space than we actually need, with three Murphy beds in our suite and one in the other, as well as couches and the actual beds. It’s about 1800 square feet....

Thursday 4/12 Another excellent day. The kids and Andrew slept in and I read on the balcony. We went to the breakfast buffet for the last time (sob). The pastries are so delicious I've been condoning a "pastry breakfast" for the girls, and for myself. Then off to the pool, another gorgeous sunny day with a light breeze but no crazy wind. We had perfect poolside chairs. We drank pina coladas, played Bingo, ate lunch, played in the pool, jumped in the ocean, searched for treasures washing up when the tide started changing. We stayed out all day, until 5pm. We had dinner at the Mexican restaurant again, our favorite of the resort's restaurants, and it did not disappoint. Andrew and I had margaritas, lobster, a cheese platter, ceviche, and pinto bean soup. Delicious, all of it. We ate so much. L&G were nearly comatose with exhaustion, but they insisted they still wanted to go swimming at night one last time, so we did. They love this nighttime dip. Turndown se...

Good Christ, I haven't written on this blog since NOVEMBER? That's terrible. To remedy this negligence, I've added BLOG to my newly redesigned bullet journal, in the "habit tracker" section, and if I don't color in those little squares every day, well, I'll feel shame and failure etc. For now, I suppose all I can do is begin again, with where we are today. Easter Fortunately for any of you who are still aware that this blog exists, I have a story. A story about slugs. A story about spending Easter in Pennsylvania, and hiding plastic eggs around the yard at 6:00am after a rainy night, and the kids running outside for the egg hunt around 7:00am, a mere hour later. They gathered up the eggs in their bags and brought them inside. Immediately, one of the kids saw a small black slug on the outside of an egg. We didn't think much of it, since the eggs had been sitting in wet grass. But then--another. And another. And then Molly saw the silhouettes of slug...