The Samsonite Children

I love to travel. I love to travel so much that I will give up almost anything to go somewhere else. The only thing I need in that "somewhere else" is a place to sleep. I don't care about the quality, the pillows, the sanitation. Just need to know it exists. I think this stems from growing up in Mississippi where a trip is anything longer than 45 minutes. I don't think I had gone to Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, more than 5 times before I went there for college. I never actually went to Memphis except to get on a plane. My parents' divorce worked to my advantage because Daddy clumped his visitation into long periods, so I got to go to wherever he was stationed - West Point, NY (cadets!!!), Shippensburg, PA (Amish!!!!), and San Antonio, Texas (pinatas!!!!). He even got a year of me while in Germany. The point of all of this is I had long, long, long periods of nothing with brief flares of adventure.

One of my favorite things about my husband is even though he is one of the least spontaneous people I know, he loves to travel as much as I do. We work well as a team. He needs the promise of food; I need the promise of rest. Together we can do all. Except we had kids. Kids have a few more needs than sleep and food. Regular schedules and all of that. Not mine. We broke them of that very young. My oldest was probably 8 years old before she realized that most people never go to Europe and most people her age go on vacation without using a plane. She honestly thought a vacation required a 24 hour endurance march before hand. My middle child has fallen asleep TWICE on the floor during waits to go through customs. He also has never slept on a transatlantic flight. As soon as they could walk, they were given a backpack with wheels and told to pull it and anything they needed to eat or play with better be in that bag.

The "big two" have traveled cross-country with me (without husband) where one of them was in a stroller and the other was strapped in a carseat on one of those foldable suitcase rolling thingies. While we lived in Europe, they sold these cool little skateboards that you could attach to the back of your stroller so an older kid could ride standing up and the younger one could sit. Bunny quickly learned how to put 3/4s of her body into the basket under the stroller, her knees remaining on the board, and take a nap. She was photographed by stunned onlookers in at least 5 countries doing this.

So, because we go almost every year to Europe, I am going to give you tips on how to prepare for each country we have visited.

Poland. - Krakow has something called cobblestones. They also have lots of inner city nature. Like giant slugs and pigeons that are all prone to diarrhea. And big hills. And no handicapped accessibility. And the men and women go in different doors to get to the toilet and end up in the same place. There is absolutely nothing on the menu that my children would eat so they lived on a diet of bread.

London (separate from England)

London has rude people who don't care about how long it takes to put your stroller on a bus. They will start driving with half of your family on the bus and half off. Also, in London, they don't have any protective cording around priceless sculptures in museums, so yes, your kids can touch them. That is when the alarms go off. Modern art museums are perfect for preschoolers. You can do shape searches. However, installation art can be a problem if part of it involves a TV loop where a woman goes from simulating an orgasm to talking to you. My daughter stood transfixed for fifteen minutes and wanted to know why the lady kept crying. The acoustics in the British Museum are concert worthy, and loud hooting echoes really well. And all the guards at the Tower of London are used to being fondled by small children. And your child screaming, "Where is Paddington Bear?" as you hurdle through the Paddington Station is generally considered funny, no matter how loud. The London Eye (the ferris wheel) is the best thing you can ever take a kid on in London.

England (well, Newcastle)

All the nice people in England live in Newcastle. Maybe it is because they make good beer. They are very indulgent of children. They find it charming when your 6-year-old daughter eats 5 sausages in one sitting. They don't mind when your children barf all over the hotel floor (cleaning standards aren't as high there, so this requires a bigger effort on the part of the staff). The subway conductors take your word for the fact you have lost your ticket. They will reimburse you for all the children's tickets you didn't need to buy that you did and apologize for the worker who sold it to you. You don't actually have to get off the bus. Ever. You can stay on the continual loop until your kids wake up from their nap. Just like London, you can buy an entire prepared meal in a grocery store. Cheese by the slice.

Cyprus - Greek people love kids. They don't blink when you walk in a restuarant with them. Your children do not have to remain in their seats. You can convince your child that octopus is a french fry. Sometimes. Mosaics are not as fascinating to kids as they are to adults. The people with tops on on the beach are the Greeks and the Americans. The British are the ones with cigarettes. The French are the ones whose boobies don't slide off of their chests into their armpits. It is worth it to rent an umbrella on the beach.

Sweden - I love Sweden. Sweden is the most child-friendly place in Europe. However, they never knew what to do with my children because Swedish children don't have temper tantrums in restaurants. Generally, there is not a kids' menu and they will make something for your kid and not charge you. If they do, it is minimal. You can live a completely cash free life in Sweden. Credit cards everywhere. If you go to the grocery store, watch your kids because there tends to be bins of candy at the end of the checkout line and your kids can eat an AMAZING amount of candy while you are looking the other way. And the grocery stores do not have bathrooms. Ever. Nor do any of the stores. You are not allowed to pee anywhere in Sweden. But when you get to go to the bathroom, be prepared. Every bathroom has an emergency cord you can pull which will set off an alarm and bring someone to rescue you. Your child will do this the minute you pull down your pants. Every single time. You turn it off by pulling it again. I left a lot of alarms blinking before I figured that out.

We have gotten calmer about traveling with the arrival of #3. I will save some stories about travel with 3 for the next blog. I am running out of stuff to say.

Fire Ants vs. Me

So, we survived Christmas. We went to Mississippi. We survived Mississippi. So, we went to New Orleans. All I can say about New Orleans is it loses some of its charm when you travel with small children and you have to continually be on the lookout to prevent their awareness of the things that many people come to New Orleans to see. "Mama, what does it mean when it says the Men are prettier than the girls?" "Why are those women in this picture licking each other?" "Mom, why is that person singing out loud in the middle of the day?" "What does it mean to suck their heads and eat their tails?" There are also the great moments - the beauty of the Garden district, all the live oak trees that were made to be climbed, the sheer otherworldliness of the French Quarter. It made me be proud to be Southern again, even though New Orleans is another planet from the Mississippi Delta. However, it DOES have one thing in common with my beloved Mississippi - FIRE ANTS.

Growing up, my mother loved to scare/thrill me with stories of African Killer Bees. I remember always thinking, "This is the year they attack!" However, it never happened. But the fire ants did come. And they do kill people. For some very horrible reason they like nursing homes and I believe at least two people have expired from fire ants bites. Anyway, fire ants are BAD. I have been stung by bees, wasps, and yellow jackets. I will take them any day over a fire ant, mainly because you generally only get one of the flying nasties. The fire ants bring all their relatives and near neighbors. And they don't die after they bite. The first time I was really bitten by fire ants was in college. It was dark. I was out with a friend, being generally irresponsible, when I realized I had to pee. And there were no options on the Natchez Trace at night, like all self-sufficient women out there, I decided to just use the side of the road. The problem was I had consumed just enough irresponsibility to have delayed reaction time. And that delayed reaction time was way too much between when I started using the fire ant pile for my personal latrine and when I realized that I was covered with fire ants and they did not like being aquatic ants. I had 62 bites between my knees and my toes (sandals and all, you know). No shoe the next day. Which brings me to the point of the story. There are fire ants in downtown New Orleans and they found me. In broad daylight. I found this out as I was walking through the French Market, and I am pretty sure I looked like I had been voodoo cursed with all the sudden jumping and slapping of myself and the occasional moan. I would have been screaming expletives except I had the children with me, but since I was inhibiting their full shopping experience of tourist crap, I probably could have cursed like a drunk sailor and they would not have noticed. I didn't get that many bites, but I learned it is better to be bitten on the toe than on the tender insides of your knees. And, like many a visitor to New Orleans, I barely made it back to my car before I was yanking off my clothes, but as my friend Adrienne referred to it, I am glad they died before they got to my personal French Quarter.