Dear Grandma, Grandpa, Ya Ya, and Pop Pop,
Greetings from Mexico City. Mom and Dad look rough, but I got us all here in one piece. Our apartment is nice, even though I have to sleep on the floor. At least I’m not sleeping in the closet like Quinn. Mom and Dad seem to think the big bed is for them, but we'll see how things play out.
Please send chocolate.
Love,
Mimi
Completely unsurprisingly, we all collapsed into our beds after dinner. Everyone slept great. Mimi was too tired to protest her air mattress on the kitchen floor, and Quinn could sleep on top of a moving rail car. So, yes, we put him in the closet. But he’s slept in far worse.
In all seriousness, the sleeping arrangements seem to be working out well. It's really nice to not have two kids sleeping in cribs anymore. That had been a limiting factor for us in the past, since it's hard enough to track down one crib while traveling, let alone two. To complicate things further, Quinn sleeps like an old horse, grunting and neighing throughout the night. So sharing a hotel room with him can be extremely painful. Even a slight sound barrier between him and us adds hours to our sleep.
We all slept better than expected, even if the kids did get up at the crack of dawn. As per normal, they showed no signs of our extremely late bedtime. Aimee and I, however, were going to need some coffee.
When traveling with kids, going to a park after breakfast totally counts as the day's activity. Low expectations and nonexistent itineraries are the keys to successful travel with toddlers. So it was back to the same café as the night before to get some coffee and breakfast, and then we wandered the streets of Coyoacán to look for some parks.
Let me tell you, Coyoacán is delightful. Cafés on every corner, cyclists and dog walkers on every sidewalk, and well maintained city parks every half mile or so.
A morning like this one makes traveling thousands of miles to spend the day at a city park seem slightly less ridiculous.
And the kids of Mexico City aren’t the only ones who get to take advantage of the parks. In addition to the occasional basketball court and soccer pitch, there is workout equipment for the grown ups at nearly every park we found.
Speaking of grown ups, this passes for a vacation now.
While Mimi and Aimee napped, Quinn and I wandered through the neighborhood and ran some errands. In the chaotic 72 hours leading up to our departure, I managed to forget baby wipes. We knew that we'd easily be able to find some in Mexico City, but it was a little terrifying to make the flights without them. Aimee had three in her purse, and I managed to find a package of eight wet wipes in an airport bookstore. One good blowout could have made our flights very uncomfortable for all parties involved.
So off we went to the neighborhood grocery store for some baby wipes, shampoo, and a half-dozen other things I wouldn’t have even considered buying on any vacation prior to the last three and a half years.
But a dude carrying a baby while carrying a bag full of diapers always gets a warm welcome anywhere on the planet. So we had a delightful walk, meeting every single grandmother within a three mile radius.
Quinn is never one to turn away gratuitous cheek pinching, but the real attraction for him on our walk was every single car, truck, bus, and streetcar we saw on our journey. And there were plenty. Mexico City has thirteen million people and eight million cars. Soak that up for a minute. And I’m not talking about the environmental impact. I’m talking about a one year old who lives on the Apache reservation absolutely losing his mind every time he sees something that he previously thought only existed in Highlights Magazine. This isn’t his first trip off the reservation, but he’s now at the age where he is infinitely more aware of his surroundings. I don’t know if I can really capture that experience in words. Every time a car drives by, he would point both of his index fingers, kick out both of his feet, bounce around in the child carrier, and squeal in disbelief as if he hadn’t already seen another 7.9 million cars over the past 24 hours. And don’t get me started about the semi-trucks.
It was hard to capture a photo of this, because typically I’d have to steady myself on a wall to not tip over. This is as close as I was able to get.
We eventually made our way back to the apartment, since I knew Aimee and Mimi would be up soon. As the rest of the gang staggered out of bed, we all made our way back to another neighborhood park, and then eventually set off for dinner. There are a dozen incredible restaurants in our neighborhood, but not a single one of them was in the direction we chose to walk that evening. We had our only non-amazing meal of the trip that night at what Grael aptly called the Subway of Mexico City quesadilla shops. A couple of twenty-something dudes behind the counter were plenty friendly, but gave us a look of “Are you sure about this?” as we walked in the door. There was a striking number of quesadilla variants on the fluorescent-lit wall menu, but they were completely indistinguishable when they arrived at our table. I did a mental inventory of how many Pepto-Bismol tablets I packed, and felt a mixture of parental guilt and gastrointestinal relief when our kids absolutely inhaled all of them, leaving just a couple of grease-soaked bites for Aimee and I. Grael, Nona, Aimee, and I wordlessly acknowledged that we would never mention this meal again, and we made our way back to the apartments.
Exhausted again, every one of us collapsed into our beds/closet. But as tired as I was, I quite literally jumped out of bed at 1am. I had heard something concerning from our bedroom closet, and was absolutely convinced that Quinn was having a catastrophic diarrheal event. I knew we should have passed on the quesadillas.
Aimee heard me get up and she stirred in bed. I told her that this was the big one, and I was going to go change his diaper, the sheets, and possibly our apartment. Aimee said through closed eyes, “Are you sure? I think he just farted.”
I stood silently in our concrete walled apartment on the outskirts of Mexico City to take stock of the situation and reconsider several of the decisions that led to where we were at that exact moment in time. Silence. A couple of crickets. A city bus on the street outside. And then an adorable, perfect little “pfffftt” from the closet as I heard Quinn roll over. As I stood in my underpants in the middle of the night, thousands of miles from home, still questioning if we should even be here, with not much more than a couple of band-aids in our medical kit, I felt an incredible wave of relief come over me.
As always, Aimee was right. I didn’t think the smell of a baby fart could bring so much joy. Or any joy for that matter. But that cheesy, greasy, heavily-fibered gust of wind was the turning point I was waiting for. We should be here. This is fun. The trip was worth it.
Thanks, Quinn. I owe you one. Now say excuse me.
