Hello muddah, hello faddah

I’ve got something to admit. Because I don’t think this blog should be only about the joys and wonders of traveling with kids but also about the hard truths. Last night, I just wanted to go home.

Why, you may ask? Well, yesterday it rained all day. Again. We’re talking multiple inches kind of rain, washed out roads kind of rain. And although I love it here, I have to admit that I’m not feeling the kind of blissful glow I usually feel after when I’ve been here for ten days. Normally, it’s pretty easy. We get up, we throw on swim suits, we go to the swimming hole by the river where we swim and play. Or we go for a walk on the path along the river, pausing at various favorite spots to collect and throw smooth rocks, warmed by the sun. Or we hop on our bikes and go for a ride on a back road.

But this year the river is too high to swim in, the rocky beaches are submerged, the dirt roads are muddle and full of chasms. We’ve got to come up with a plan every day. And the children, wonderful though they are, really want a good plan, because otherwise they are stuck in a small house with few toys and only each other to poke and wrestle and torment. There are only so many forts you can build with the sofa cushions, only so many pictures you can draw, only so many times you can play hide and seek with your baby brother who doesn’t really get the point of the game and tends to stand in the middle of the living room yelling “Tommy! Where are you?” when you hide.

We’ve done a good job, don’t get me wrong. And the minute it stops raining we usually manage to find some way to get outside (although not enough to actually work off the few creemees we have eaten, and so instead of feeling fit and tan as per usual, I’m feeling bloated and pale).

In my next post I’ll talk about how my sister- and brother-in-law are here and how excited the boys are and about catching huge tadpoles and spotted salamanders. But first, allow me to make my confession. Sometimes, you just want to go home.