The last blogpost of our little Christmas vacation…4 months ago at this point…and almost certainly the last post before a second human baby joins the family in a few short weeks! We just had our last weekend away this past weekend (to the very exciting town of Langhorne, PA for a weekend at SESAME PLACE), and will stay put until the new baby comes.
We’re in the home stretch and it still feels like there’s a few big things to do before I can relax a little – we have some momentum on getting a bigger car (EDIT: I started writing this yesterday, and last night we ended up getting the car! Woot!), the bathroom addition is almost complete (an unhooked toilet just taunts me every time I walk past it…hopefully my hounding skills will get the contractors to finish that up by the end of this week), and I’m making very, very slow progress on unpacking all the baby things / making a few postpartum meals. Also we both still have jobs, or something. But at least now we have our cleaners and landscapers sorted out! Small homeowner wins.
We’re also in the process of transitioning S back to daycare – there’s finally some movement on that waitlist, maybe! As we’re hitting the almost 2-month mark of having a nanny and M is getting into the groove of his new job, I’m realizing more and more that we are very much a daycare family. Our nanny is almost perfect, and I still miss the socialization and structure of daycare (not to mention, having the kids physically out of the house). The bonuses of having my laundry done and kitchen tidied up every day are great, but ultimately I’m willing to let things be a little messier (or, honestly, hire a daily housekeeper for 1/100th of the price of a nanny) if it means our kids learning and socializing more. And yes, I very much realize they will be very young for the foreseeable future and generations of kids have thrived without structured learning in the first few years of their life, but every time our nanny comments on how “smart” S is [e.g., knows how to take turns, shares, speaks a LOT of words for her age], I always think to myself – well yeah she learned all that in daycare. It reminds me a bit of those precocious kids who were always too bored in elementary/middle school and needed more than what was offered. M and I were both those kids, and as much as we joke about how funny it would be if we ended up having dumb jocks as progeny, the probability of that happening so far seems pretty low (unfortunately…)
Anyway. Enjoy the photos and quick recap from URUGUAY! We already have some “must do” trips coming up later this year that are in the midst of being planned even though we’ll have a very squirmy toddler and a very young infant (not to mention it’ll be the start of my promotion year at work – jury’s still out if I’m going to take the full, very generous maternity leave this time): another cross-country trip to the PNW at the end of July, and a trip to Greece in Sept!
By the time we made it to Montevideo, I was WIPED. We stayed in a hotel for this stretch of time with a wonderful indoor pool, so we honestly spent a lot of afternoons after naptime there. Our hotel was right next to the Solis Theater by Independence Plaza and things in Montevideo are a lot calmer than they are in Buenos Aires. We didn’t rent a car, so we mostly walked around to the main attractions and to the beach. We took it very slow and easy for this stretch of time, and mostly just enjoyed hanging out in the surrounding areas. Uruguay as a whole is laid back, and apparently is the most peaceful country in South America due to its political and social stability. We unfortunately didn’t get a chance to explore anything outside of Montevideo, but I hear that driving around the countryside is magical.
One rainy day we spent the morning walking to Mercado del Puerto, which in our opinion was a little overrated. But we loved going down to the Ramblas (a walk along the coast) and enjoying the city beach a bit. And there were a lot of beautiful parks – one of which was a toddler amusement park! – and we spent much of the time exploring the parks (M and S) and lounging around/picnicking (me).
We also visited a few museums that we passed by – I loved the Palacio Taranco and, best of all, it was free! S enjoyed running around and almost touching all the priceless artifacts. By the end of the trip we felt that we successfully crossed off another South America trip off our list, and were ready to head back home to pack / move before our crazy few months in Q1. This was S’s last international trip as an only child!! Next time we’ll have to buy her a seat + get bigger hotel rooms and everything. Kids are the opposite of affordable 🙂
theaffordableadventurist 