getting deported from the traveling nation
looking now at my last post, it seems a little creepy. i don't call justin "daddy" or think of him as a father figure to me. i'm nearly eight years older than him, for pete's sake, which actually helps to balance out some societal, patriarchal tendencies in male/female relationships. i was referring to telling milo that his daddy was home, not mine or ours.
although i do sometimes affectionately call him "my baby daddy."
it rocks to have him home, sleeping athletically next to me. (seriously - how ambitious does one have to be to tear apart the bedcovers the way he can, and does, and is doing even now? one of the few nice things about him being gone is the ability to position the bedcovers where they best serve me and to know that they will still be that way when i awake. how many times did i wake up last night because i was cold, to find the covers half on him and half on the floor on his side of the bed? i lost count. i will gladly trade secure covers for having him next to me, but it would be nice if he quit being such a cover-hog.)
when justin got home yesterday morning, while he was still wound up and before he crashed from complete exhaustion, he talked about how excited he was by the thought of traveling with milo, of climbing volcanoes with him (even if it means carrying him the last part of the trip, when his little legs grow weary) and seeing monkeys in the wild and cooling off in the heat of the day with a splash in the hotel pool. we talked about milo's first luggage (after he outgrows diaper bags) and when he would be old enough to choose what to pack in his own tiny backpack to carry for himself.
and then i thought - um, when are we going to have sex when we're on the road with milo? and why hadn't i thought this problem through before now? before we had the sex that led to kids might have been a good time, don't you think? at home, while a challenge, i think sex can still be had. that's why milo has his own room - so he can be napping in his crib while we get it on in ours. but on the road, we can hardly put a toddler or even a ten year old in a hotel room by himself.
look, there is more to life than sex, and yes, sex will be different when we have an actual living child. i know these things. but sex on the road is important to me. sometimes on sleepy mornings (like this one) we lay in bed and count the countries in which we've had sex. with the counting comes the recounting (ahem), and the recounting is good. it's a very important part of our private, mental travel scrapbook. hotel sex is part of what makes our relationship tick. clean white sheets that will not be made up or changed by me, in a room where the phone will not ring to interrupt us and where there are no baskets of clothes on the floor within sight waiting to be folded, and when there are no scheduled events that must be attended immediately after - these things make for a good time.
justin has a plan in which we take along one or more grandparents on our travels - grandparents which will stay in a separate hotel room with our darling child and will stay with said child at night while we go out. i think that idea is absolutely brilliant, and i want to execute it often. but i don't always want to take one of our parents along. i want to have some travels for just us, our little family. and there are some trips we take, and on which we will take milo, that will have to be tempered if we take a grandparent. i'm not sure any of our parents would put up with eating gallo pinto three times a day for a week, or going without hot water - or plumbing, even - for very long, and even the most flexible of them may not be able to tolerate our intentional avoidance of a schedule or itinerary for more than a day or two.
it will work out, i suppose, but i'm bummed about travel right now anyway, since my traveling days are over for the time being. i can't fly any more, but we had planned some weekend road trips in june, some last babymoons, that are now cancelled because justin will be working weekends starting weekend after next. understandably, justin is not up to driving away anywhere today, and next weekend my mom will be here. seeing as how we invited her and all, we can hardly pick her up from the airport, drop her at home, and tell her we'll be back sunday night, i suppose.
we plan to go to florida for a tour of the southern wings of our families about a month after milo is born, but that will be, you know, with milo. we also plan to go to spain in december, grandmothers in tow, but that's 7 months away. i will not be going anywhere else before milo is born. unless i go visit justin's family or our friends who live in suburbs, i will not even leave cleveland. this realization makes me feel penned in, a little panicky. is it possible to have claustrophobia on a global scale?
although i do sometimes affectionately call him "my baby daddy."
it rocks to have him home, sleeping athletically next to me. (seriously - how ambitious does one have to be to tear apart the bedcovers the way he can, and does, and is doing even now? one of the few nice things about him being gone is the ability to position the bedcovers where they best serve me and to know that they will still be that way when i awake. how many times did i wake up last night because i was cold, to find the covers half on him and half on the floor on his side of the bed? i lost count. i will gladly trade secure covers for having him next to me, but it would be nice if he quit being such a cover-hog.)
when justin got home yesterday morning, while he was still wound up and before he crashed from complete exhaustion, he talked about how excited he was by the thought of traveling with milo, of climbing volcanoes with him (even if it means carrying him the last part of the trip, when his little legs grow weary) and seeing monkeys in the wild and cooling off in the heat of the day with a splash in the hotel pool. we talked about milo's first luggage (after he outgrows diaper bags) and when he would be old enough to choose what to pack in his own tiny backpack to carry for himself.
and then i thought - um, when are we going to have sex when we're on the road with milo? and why hadn't i thought this problem through before now? before we had the sex that led to kids might have been a good time, don't you think? at home, while a challenge, i think sex can still be had. that's why milo has his own room - so he can be napping in his crib while we get it on in ours. but on the road, we can hardly put a toddler or even a ten year old in a hotel room by himself.
look, there is more to life than sex, and yes, sex will be different when we have an actual living child. i know these things. but sex on the road is important to me. sometimes on sleepy mornings (like this one) we lay in bed and count the countries in which we've had sex. with the counting comes the recounting (ahem), and the recounting is good. it's a very important part of our private, mental travel scrapbook. hotel sex is part of what makes our relationship tick. clean white sheets that will not be made up or changed by me, in a room where the phone will not ring to interrupt us and where there are no baskets of clothes on the floor within sight waiting to be folded, and when there are no scheduled events that must be attended immediately after - these things make for a good time.
justin has a plan in which we take along one or more grandparents on our travels - grandparents which will stay in a separate hotel room with our darling child and will stay with said child at night while we go out. i think that idea is absolutely brilliant, and i want to execute it often. but i don't always want to take one of our parents along. i want to have some travels for just us, our little family. and there are some trips we take, and on which we will take milo, that will have to be tempered if we take a grandparent. i'm not sure any of our parents would put up with eating gallo pinto three times a day for a week, or going without hot water - or plumbing, even - for very long, and even the most flexible of them may not be able to tolerate our intentional avoidance of a schedule or itinerary for more than a day or two.
it will work out, i suppose, but i'm bummed about travel right now anyway, since my traveling days are over for the time being. i can't fly any more, but we had planned some weekend road trips in june, some last babymoons, that are now cancelled because justin will be working weekends starting weekend after next. understandably, justin is not up to driving away anywhere today, and next weekend my mom will be here. seeing as how we invited her and all, we can hardly pick her up from the airport, drop her at home, and tell her we'll be back sunday night, i suppose.
we plan to go to florida for a tour of the southern wings of our families about a month after milo is born, but that will be, you know, with milo. we also plan to go to spain in december, grandmothers in tow, but that's 7 months away. i will not be going anywhere else before milo is born. unless i go visit justin's family or our friends who live in suburbs, i will not even leave cleveland. this realization makes me feel penned in, a little panicky. is it possible to have claustrophobia on a global scale?
posted by laura at 7:43 AM
7 Comments:
Interesting....
:-/
I love you to death, and am so excited for Milo, but really, the global claustrophobia is just the tip of the iceberg. There will be many many restrictions and stuff, although so many people told me it is what you make it (apparently I didn't make enough), but let my qualify by saying there will be even more rewards.
i know it's just one thing, and it's small to most people, but it's a huge thing to me, because it's what we do. other people collect stamps or play softball or whatever. we take advantage of the perks of justin's job and travel. it's what feeds my soul, like religion or extreme sport os drugs do for other people. i knew it would be restricted with a child, but i was treasuring every last opportunity to travel by ourselves, making the most of them - and i thought i still had some left.
back to check in to see how you are doing. must blogroll you to keep up!
Ummm...judging from my experience, you will be just fine sharing a room with Milo, and waiting until he goes to sleep...Chloe is not a particularly sound sleeper overall but she has never been seriously bothered by our bedroom activities...or, if not, bring along the in-laws -- we do that sometimes too. Don't worry, you'll work it out.
I have to agree with Kate ... we just wait until the babes are asleep - no worries!
As for travel - I can relate to your global claustrophobia as I LOVE to travel. We have three kids and have lived in three countries with them. We still travel as much as we can. For us the effort is worth it - because I get itchy feet staying still for too long!
How will you have sex once Milo is born? Quietly and with a certain amount of stealth:)
Ask anyone and you will find that only those who have never tried to avoid detection by their own sweet offspring have loud sex. You will quickly master the art of 'stealth sex'. It's like labour amnesia - it comes with the kid! It won't stop you travelling:)
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