To and Fro

The last two weeks have been pretty tiring. Last week I was in Wilmington on Tuesday for work, and then on Friday we packed the boys in the car and drove down to Virginia to the annual family reunion. 6 hours each way. That’s a lot of sitting still. We got back on Sunday night, and then left again Monday morning for Boston. Three days in a hotel in Boston with two toddlers while contemporaneously engaging in protracted negotiations to settle a complicated construction defect case left me completely drained and fried by the time we pulled out of the I-Hop parking lot in Cambridge and pointed the car towards home. J and D weren’t fairing much better and screamed and/or whined for the better part of the ride home. I am consistently guilty of overestimating the boys tolerance for new experiences as do I consistently overestimate my own ability to deal with their overt expressions of discontent while also attempting to engage in normal, adult activities. As much as I try to remind myself that the boys are just being boys, I still feel like my nerves are chafed raw when I have to listen to hours of whining and protestations whenever we’re doing something that they aren’t interested in. (Like sitting in a car for 4 hours on I-90). I need to work on this. I think the solution is a combination of engaging in activities more suited to their ages and being more aware everyone’s limitations. That and a good swat on the behind every now and then when the protesting itself is completely unreasonable.

I’m not really the type to spend a lot of time sitting around the house and I thought the Boston trip would be a fun family experience. For the most part, it was. We got to go to the old North Church and E and I even hired a baby-sitter and went out to eat alone, an increasingly rare occurrence. I have discovered, however, that work and toddlers don’t really mix. I’m not saying my performance at the mediation suffered, but I was a little more stressed out than I usually am at these sorts of things and I felt like the purpose for which I was in Boston, (work), was taking a back seat to changing diapers and trying to keep the boys from destroying the hotel. It might be a while before I try to blend business and family travel again.

Speaking of being unable to recognize limitations, with some trepidation I booked a flight for the four of us to Tampa to go down and see the folks in mid-August. Jack has flown to Florida twice since he was born, once at 4 months, once at seven. Both times he was a perfect travel companion, but he was sleeping a lot more in those days and didn’t have a little pal to conspire with. I have no idea what to expect behavior-wise from either one of them, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the early flight time and the motion of the plane will rock them both to sleep before we get carted away by the air marshals.