Hello Again Amsterdam
It's 6.38 in the am, dark on the canal outside and the forecast for today says rainy and 8 degrees. David is attempting to hard boil eggs (the "googly way") in the kitchen, Cal is down for his morning nap (we were up at 3.50, thanks jet-lag) and I couldn't be happier to be home in Amsterdam. The last 48 hours have been hard going on all three of us. In Colombo Cal developed a nasty case of conjunctivitis, which added to his already-substantial list of Things to be Really Unhappy About. Poor kid - teething, nappy rash, a cold, jet-lag and crusty eyes do not a happy baby make. Add 14 hours of planes and airports to the mix and we were all pretty frayed by the end of yesterday.
Throughout the journey home David and I were mentally making a list of our own. It's called Things to Remember Before Getting All Excited and Booking Holidays (With a Baby). At the moment it's a pretty negative and cynical list, so I think we'll keep it to ourselves until we've recovered a bit. We knew that it wasn't going to be all piña coladas and long walks on the beach, but we still can't understand why when we floated the idea of a tropical adventure with a baby, all our friends with kids just smiled and were like, oh how lovely! No one mentioned that it would be mostly traumatic, punctuated with moments of pleasantness.
Yesterday by the pool at the hotel a newly pregnant Australian couple complimented us on how nice it was to see people travelling with their baby, and how we were giving them hope for their future adventures as a family. I'd like to say that we were gracious and supportive of their hopes, but thinking back I don't think that this was the case. If they stumble across this blog, may I extend our apologies for any ranting that occurred. You caught us on a bad day.
In theory the trip sounded like a good idea. And the photos certainly make it look like that. As I said, there were moments of pleasantness, like yesterday when Cal was asleep and Frank Sinatra crooned as I lapped back down the pool towards my passionfruit daiquiri. Or swimming at the beach and listening underwater to the sound of shells and trying to think of a way to describe the silvery sound. And Cal's delight at learning that a step up requires a really big step. And finding out again and again that I married the right guy - one who's brave and kind enough to dance and sing our crying kid to sleep in front of a crowded cabin of weary passengers.
These are the moments that I'll keep safe for rainy waits at tram stops and when copy-decks crash. They'll go in the Happy-Place box with the other pieces of life that stand out from the rest and string together to form something wonderful.
Throughout the journey home David and I were mentally making a list of our own. It's called Things to Remember Before Getting All Excited and Booking Holidays (With a Baby). At the moment it's a pretty negative and cynical list, so I think we'll keep it to ourselves until we've recovered a bit. We knew that it wasn't going to be all piña coladas and long walks on the beach, but we still can't understand why when we floated the idea of a tropical adventure with a baby, all our friends with kids just smiled and were like, oh how lovely! No one mentioned that it would be mostly traumatic, punctuated with moments of pleasantness.
Yesterday by the pool at the hotel a newly pregnant Australian couple complimented us on how nice it was to see people travelling with their baby, and how we were giving them hope for their future adventures as a family. I'd like to say that we were gracious and supportive of their hopes, but thinking back I don't think that this was the case. If they stumble across this blog, may I extend our apologies for any ranting that occurred. You caught us on a bad day.
In theory the trip sounded like a good idea. And the photos certainly make it look like that. As I said, there were moments of pleasantness, like yesterday when Cal was asleep and Frank Sinatra crooned as I lapped back down the pool towards my passionfruit daiquiri. Or swimming at the beach and listening underwater to the sound of shells and trying to think of a way to describe the silvery sound. And Cal's delight at learning that a step up requires a really big step. And finding out again and again that I married the right guy - one who's brave and kind enough to dance and sing our crying kid to sleep in front of a crowded cabin of weary passengers.
These are the moments that I'll keep safe for rainy waits at tram stops and when copy-decks crash. They'll go in the Happy-Place box with the other pieces of life that stand out from the rest and string together to form something wonderful.
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