Joyeux Noel, y'all. Well, so much for that "I'm gonna continue posting every day" stuff. I'm typing at you from a Starbucks in suburban Houston, Texas. It's the morning of Christmas Eve, and I don't have a whole helluva lot to report, but I'll share this anecdote with you.
About four years ago, I was milling around the Virgin Megastore on Union Square (which, I just learned, is slated to close in 2009 for reasons currently unknown), and I ran into an old friend of mine from high school. We started catching up, and I let slip that my wife was pregnant with our first child (the one who'd turn out to be Charlotte), and I confessed that I was feeling a bit of aprehension in terms of what lay ahead. My friend -- who was already a father twice over at that point -- immediately launched into a heart-warming pep talk about the transformative power of becoming a parent and how it was the best thing that ever happened to him and all that stuff. It was an incredibly encouraging speech, actually. In any case, his biggest piece of advice was that we (the wife and I) should never feel limited by the circumstances of being parents. Let them (the children) adapt to our lives. It was up to us to dictate and set the standards, not them. We should travel and enjoy life as we normally would. We shouldn't feel suddenly constrained because we'd procreated. Evidently, my friend and his Missus had continued to pursue an active life of globe-trotting even with a pair of toddlers in tow. They'd consciously refused to let the baggage of having children slow them down.
Four years and two children later, lemme tell ya something. As affirming and heart-warming and hopeful as my friend's pep talk was, here's the real deal: traveling with children is a bitch. Don't do it. It's maddening. Stay home. The Pyramids, Iceland, the Alamo, Hong Kong, The Great Wall of China, Paris, New Guinea, Angkor Wat -- all those places will ideally still be there by the time your kids have grown up and gotten the hell out of your hair. Dragging your screaming, squirmy little ones through airport after airport is only going to turn you prematurely grey. The fun doesn't stop when you reach your destination either. The new surroundings and unfamiliar sleeping arrangements are also going to play a few tricks on your routine-craving offspring, which means that the notion of sleep with become as elusive and mythical as the Loch Ness Monster.
We're four days into our two week trip. Here's hoping the kids acclimate soon. That's all I want for Christmas, at this point.
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