We are home.  It’s a wonderful feeling, after a week away.  There are piles of laundry to wash, several bags to unpack and acres of dog hair to vacuum up.  Our apartment feels HUGE right now (and not just because it needs a week’s worth of cleaning — our apartment in Paris was roughly the size of just our living room and dining room put together, and we were very comfortable.)  We’re so happy to be home, but we had an excellent time in France.

Paris was exciting, gorgeous and magical.  Normandy was beautiful, serene and peaceful.  The food we ate everywhere in France was phenomenal (they make a masterpiece out of a ham and cheese sandwich).

My favorite part of the trip wasn’t discovering France, although I am thrilled to have been able to.  The best part was spending 7 days together, on vacation, as a family.  (We’ve never done that before.)

We didn’t need to be up at any particular time or be anywhere on a schedule (most of the time).  We ate our meals when we were hungry, the boys napped when they were tired (Dan and I each got a few naps, too, but not as often as we needed them).  On days when we wanted to see stuff, we did, and on days when we needed to rest, we did (mostly).  We let the boys make a lot of the decisions, and we absolutely over-indulged them (isn’t that what vacation is for?).  But, mostly, we spent a ton of time together, all four of us.

It was great.  I love vacation.

Benjamin’s room here has no curtains, so he and I were up first thing, just after 6.  We started off our foggy morning playing in the yard and watering some (already damp) flowers.

Today was our day to explore this part of France-that-isn’t-Paris.  Our first stop for the morning was the beach.  B has been asking to go, and we figured it would be a chance for some fun freedom for the boys, even though it was cloudy and chilly.  On the way, we stopped in the cutest village ever for quiche and baguettes, and then the drive to the shore was very pretty (Dan especially like the houses with sod roofs — some complete with tulip gardens on top).  Once we arrived in the seaside town of Deauville, it was fun to see the difference between a French beach house (looks just like a French country cottage, just at the beach) and an American one.  We got to the town, found parking, and took our excited boys to the beach.  They were so excited to walk in the sand, pick up shells and run towards the waves.  It lost its allure after about 2 minutes.  (We convinced them to stay for 5.  B had me set a timer so we didn’t stay too long.)

We carried them back to the car, got them strapped in to their car seats, and started off to our next destination.  I was a little disappointed that they hadn’t enjoyed the beach more, and that they hadn’t gotten to spend an hour or so just running around.

But, less than a block from where we’d been exploring the beach, we came upon a huge play area, with ride-on toys, trampolines, gigantic inflatable bouncy contraptions and (ironically) a big sandbox.

It was a huge hit.  We played for an hour.  They rode on tractors and motorcycles.  They dug in the sand (really).  They bounced.  B jumped on a trampoline and climbed up the huge slide.  They ran, they played, and got to be free and make all of the decisions for a little while.  They were really happy.

After we played, we drove to Honfleur, a picturesque town on the water, near Normandy.  The views along the way, out into the English Channel, were so stunning that we pulled over a few times just to stare.

Honfleur is small and very cute.  We walked through the streets and tried ice cream from three different shops (all good).  It’s been a long, fun week, though, and it wasn’t long before we got tired and headed for “home”.

Tomorrow we’ll pack up, drive to Paris, and fly to Vienna.  Our trip has been a success, and as much as I’ll be glad to be home, I’ll definitely miss being on vacation.  I think the boys have had fun,  too.  Tonight, before dinner, before the end-of-vacation meltdowns began, Benjamin asked, “Can we stay here forever?”

I kind of feel that way, too.  (But I miss my bed.  And my shower.  And our dog.  So, Vienna it is.)

This morning, we left Paris.  We dragged our stuff to the airport, rented a car, and headed to Normandy.

Mostly, I think France looks like Maryland:  hilly, wooded and dotted with expansive open farm spaces — but with yellow flowers everywhere and boar crossing signs mixed in with the signs for deer crossings.  Along the highway, each town or village we passed was depicted with a cute and distinct sign, indicative of the region.

We were lucky — it was an easy trip.  Liam slept nearly the whole way (we weren’t sure how he’d handle a long car trip, since he hasn’t ridden in a car in over a year) and Benjamin was entertained by the journey when he wasn’t also asleep.

After a few hours, we arrived at our destination: a house in the country which belongs to the parents of a friend of ours, who kindly offered it to us for a few days.  We’re about 5 km outside of a tiny town, and many of the houses around us have sheep, chickens or cows in the yards.

The boys love having a yard to play in.  Liam denuded the yard of daisies and dandelions, while B found a watering can and watered the ones Liam missed.  We’re enjoying our country retreat — we have no cable, no Internet — just us, enjoying our vacation.

This evening, we went to town for groceries, stopped at the chocolatier and made a quick dinner reservation at a tres French restaurant (also tres fancy).  When we came back to eat, our meal took over 2 1/2 hours. Amazingly, the kids did great (and, not surprisingly, it turns out that Liam loves French food).

It’s later than we intended, and we’re all tired.  We’re not sure we’ve gotten the heat in the house figured out yet, but so far, so good in Normandy.

Versailles is GRAND. It’s impressively huge, gilded and verdant with grounds and gardens that cover almost 2000 acres. The paths through the trees stretch (literally) as far as you can see, and even though the palace itself is massive, you lose sight of it as you wander the grounds.

We didn’t go inside — we stuck to the exterior for the sake of the boys (and because after 4+ hours exploring the gardens, we had no energy left for waiting in the lines to enter the palace). We walked all over — we saw manicured flower beds, orange trees covered in fruit (which surprised me), acres of high, trimmed hedgerows and trees, dozens of fountains and even a canal (where you can rent boats).

After a few hours, we rented B a bike (with pedals, but also with training wheels) to ease his exploration of the grounds. I’m pretty sure it was the highlight of his entire time in Paris so far.

We are, as we have been so often on this trip, completely exhausted, but very happy with our day’s adventure. Versailles is grand, beautiful and impressive, and it’s on a larger scale than any other place I’ve ever been. I’m very glad we went.

Yesterday was fun, but grueling, so we wanted to have a quiet day today. We slept in, and then got dressed and headed out.

Our first stop was Notre Dame, which Is just a few blocks from where we’re staying. We arrived before the biggest crowds, and were able to walk around and explore in relative peace. I loved it, but it was still a lot of having to be quiet for the kids, so we didn’t stay long, or wait in the tremendous lines to climb the towers.

After that, our day consisted of breakfast, ice cream, a walk by the Seine, listening to some street musicians (who ironically played only songs we sued to reach to at the dance studio), much needed naps, and more ice cream.

Around sunset, we again found ourselves near Notre Dame, watching more street performances — the boys were particularly enthralled by a guy making giant bubbles, and a after a few minutes, Benjamin was invited up to make bubbles himself, which was pretty exciting. (He did great!)

We finished our day with an excellent French meal, less than a block from our apartment.

It might not sound like it, but it was a good, relaxing day. I love being on vacation with my family, and I feel like we’re getting a real opportunity to get a sense of Paris. We are having a great time!

So, we’re about to leave on our trip, and all of my confidence and bravery begin to waver in the face of insecurity and self-doubt. I’m plagued by the feeling that I didn’t do enough to prepare for this trip — enough contingency planning, enough research into sights, enough practicing of my French.

But, really, what would more preparation have gotten me? I can’t foresee everything that could possibly go wrong, so I probably wouldn’t be prepared for the right contingency anyway. We only have enough time to (sanely) see a few sights, so having researched myself into an unreasonable wish list wouldn’t have done me any favors, either. (I do wish I had some idea of where we’ll be able to find milk and diapers, but I know we’ll sort that out.)

I really should have brushed up on my French, though. I guess that’s how I’ll use the plane ride (assuming I get the chance).

I’m feeling excited, and at least a little brave, as we embark on this adventure. But it still makes me anxious and insecure. Adventures are a little scary, especially because being adventurous is so far outside of my comfort zone. (But I’m working on it — obviously.)

In theory, I get it.  I really, really do — keeping myself in a good frame of mind is the single most important thing I can do to help my whole family enjoy an experience . . . for instance, a trip to Paris.

But realizing that and actually doing it are not the same.

It is so easy to get stressed.  There is so much to do, and the pressure accumulates.  It feels like whether or not we have an enjoyable time on this trip rests 100% on my ability to predict and prepare for everything we will need while we’re away.  And, I realize, in some ways, that’s actually true.  As the person in charge of packing and organizing (and a fair bit of the planning, even though Dan did a lot) my ability to think ahead will help us have a good time.  I feel the pressure, I feel the deadline approaching, I recognize that only a finite amount of time remains for packing and planning, and I try to accept that not everything I’d like to get done is actually going to be accomplished.

And then, I freak out a little and I start to turn into a troll.  Because even though I theoretically understand that things aren’t going to be perfect, part of my brain can’t really accept that.  I snap at Dan when he tells me he can’t find the tv remote, I sigh heavily when B asks me to turn on the Wii, I get crabby and irritable when I realize it’s almost time to pop the popcorn for movie night.  I *know* I shouldn’t, but it’s not always possible to do the right thing.

There’s laundry to be done, boots to be tracked down, dog food to be purchased, socks to be packed, trash cans to be emptied.  I should also get a reasonable amount of sleep tonight, because if I don’t, I know I’ll be even grumpier tomorrow.  (So, I end up being stressed about getting to bed so that I can be less stressed . . . hmm.)

My task for tonight is to put theory into practice.  I need to work on actually letting go of some of the details.  I need to embrace the fact that getting 90% of this stuff done will be good enough.  I need to remember that they have clothing stores, grocery stores and drug stores in Paris.  I need to be a relaxed, happy mom for my kids and I need to banish the troll-mom that is trying to take over.  (And I really DO need to get to bed at a reasonable hour, because getting rid of a travel troll is much easier with a good night’s rest.)

We are going to Paris.  My passport is here, the plane tickets have been purchased.  (We don’t yet have a hotel room reserved, however.  Dan is — voluntarily — in charge of planning this trip, so this is happening on a Dan/ADD schedule, not an Emily/OCD schedule.  I keep telling myself I will survive this.)

Now comes the task of packing, which really means making lists, doing laundry, sorting clothes, setting things aside, keeping said things out of the reach of the kids and the dog and, finally, trying to fit everything in to a reasonable amount of luggage to be managed by two adults who will also be wrangling two children and a stroller.  (I actually started working on packing last weekend — I prefer two weeks to work on it, but the details of this trip are kind of coming together at the last minute.)

This is not an easy task.  It takes a lot of thought and organization.  Secretly, I love doing this — it’s exactly that kind of challenge that suits the way my brain works.  (But it’s still a big job, and it still stresses me out.)

A few trips ago, I gave up trying to pack for every eventuality.  For years, trying to be prepared for anything and everything just left me carrying around a bunch of stuff I never needed, but I would STILL typically not have the one thing that would actually have been useful when some unforseen circumstance came up (such is the nature of the unforseen).  I am a bad Girl Scout — I simply must accept I will not always “be prepared” for everything.

I’m really going for “less is more” in terms of packing this time.  Anything we need, short of our actual passports (and actually, probably even those) can be purchased or replaced in France.  I am packing half the clothes that I think we need (except that I’m allowing for a full complement of socks, underwear and onesies, because there are limits to my practicality).  Our shirts and pants can be reworn — and if they get too dirty, they can be washed in the sink (since we don’t have a hotel yet, I don’t know if we’ll have easy access to laundry facilities).  For each of us, I’m packing a rain coat and a fleece jacket, which can be layered if it’s cold (even if it’s not raining, because a raincoat also makes a good wind breaker).  We’re each bringing two paris of shoes — one pair of rain boots and one pair of good walking shoes.  (I’d skip the boots except that the forecast calls for rain almost every day we’ll be in France.)  We’re bringing minimal toiletries and diapers (we can buy more of whatever we need), as well as only a few books and toys (because it will be more fun if we get a few things on our trip).

My goal is to pack for all four of us, for a week, in two relatively small rolling suitcases and one large-ish backpack.  (That includes packing the Ergo baby carrier, which takes up a fair bit of space on its own.)

I’ve assembled about 80% of our stuff at this point, but I haven’t tackled the actual packing yet.  That comes tomorrow (assuming Liam is easily distracted by tv tomorrow morning).  I’m hoping we can “travel light” (relatively) and be less worried about our stuff and more free to enjoy our time.  We shall see.  (But if they don’t sell diapers in France, we’re going to be in big trouble.)

In preparing for our upcoming trip to Paris (which is actually happening, because my passport came today!) we’re learning that getting around with a stroller will probably not be trivial.  Several of the major sights don’t permit strollers (while, interestingly, others require them for little ones) and they also neither provide an officially sanctioned place to leave them temporarily, nor do they allow you to just leave them around (probably not a good idea, anyway, given how common theft seems to be at the big tourist places).  The Metro, which we’ve heard is the “best in Europe” — so theoretically superior to Vienna’s U-bahns (although that’s hard for me to imagine) is small and difficult to maneuver with a stroller and, unbelievably, most stations are not accessible by elevator.  Many don’t even have escalators, so we’d be left to carry the stroller up and down the stairs.  (Doesn’t sound like fun.)

I don’t want to judge Paris unfairly before we go, but we aren’t used to any of this.  Vienna is so stroller friendly, we’ve been spoiled.

In our entire time here, there have only been a handful of places that have been challenging to access with the stroller (other than a few private residences, I can actually only think of one — our favorite pizza place).  Everywhere in Vienna is wheelchair accessible, which means everywhere is stroller accessible.  All of the palaces (including the grounds), cathedrals, trains . . . plus nearly all shops and restaurants.  There are a few places without convenient stroller “parking”, so you end up having to stash the stroller around the corner or out of the way, but it hasn’t ever really been an issue.  Not once.

And the few places where it’s a bit of a challenge (on the non-street-level trains and strassenbhans, for example) there’s an easy solution — someone will ALWAYS help you get on or off.  (In the case of the trains, the conductor will actually get out of the train to help you if there isn’t anyone else around to do it.)

Planning ahead to Paris, we’re working on some creative strategies to get around (because we’d been counting on the Metro).  We’ll walk a lot of places (which still lets us use the stroller) and we’ll use the Moby and/or the Ergo where walking isn’t practical.  But I’m realizing how much we’ve taken Vienna, and the pleasant stroller situations, for granted.  It’s truly lovely how easy it is to get around here with a stroller.  We take ours everywhere, without a worry or thought.  I am so grateful to have that luxury — and I’m not too worried about Paris.  It’s only a week — we’ll be fine.  But I do suspect there will be a lot of impromptu nap times spent with our little ones sleeping in our laps while we hang out in cafes.

Each day as a mom has its challenges.  Today’s challenge:  attempting to convince my two boys to take their naps while we had guys working on our roof (hammering, stomping, running carts of cement up a ladder from the courtyard, “enjoying” their loud music being blasted from just above our skylight).  Mommy was a bit frazzled by this evening.

But every day has wonderful moments, too.  Like this evening, just before bath, when Dan went into our room to check on Benjamin where he was watching cartoons on Dan’s phone.  He found him curled up, under the blankets in our bed, and he requested company.  First Dan joined him, followed by Liam and I.

Even with the inevitable elbows to the face, hair pulling and general wriggling around, it was the absolute best part of my day.  It isn’t possible for the magic of 10 minutes spent cuddling with my kids to be overshadowed by anything.  It is amazing and absolutely perfect.  I love being a mom.