I am currently on a family holiday in Thailand. It is absolutely exquisite! One of my first few posts from the beautiful Resort was this:
And it’s true! “Holidays with young kids isn’t about relaxing, it’s about making wonderful memories”. I am the first to admit that several times throughout the trip I wondered if it was actually worth it. Was changing winter for summer worth 2 weeks of packing and preparing before leaving?! Was the beautiful resort worth 2 hours of customs and hectic security and 9 hours of flying? I just kept reminding myself of the memories we were going to have. Not WE being the kids and us.. WE being us. The kids will never remember this.
This is the photo I posted about the flight:
But what really happened is that Rafaella got tonsillitis a few days before and even though she was on antibiotics, she was not very happy to say the least and this was the last time she sat by herself the whole flight. And this photo was taken before take off! She only wanted to be held by me and I spent most of the 9 hours pacing up and down the aisles with an unhappy baby, receiving angry looks from travellers trying to watch the in flight entertainment.
Or how about this cute picture that I posted? Look at me – I am such an earth mother carrying my baby in an ergo around… I am clearly one of those calm Mayim Bialik attachment parenting kind of mothers:
The reality? She was still not feeling well and just wanted to be carried around all the time so the ergo allowed my strained back and arms to have a little respite from my 12kg baby.
And now we have the ultimate happy family quint-essential Thailand experience. The family riding on an elephant through the jungle together, getting in touch with Mother Earth and connecting to nature…
I’ll let the following photo give you the reality check here:
Here’s a beautiful family shot. My smile is genuine – I am so happy to be with my wonderful family. But thank goodness it’s taken from a little far away and it’s night so the lighting isn’t great. Look closer and you would have seen I had bags under my eyes because I had been lying awake worrying about Rafi and you would have also seen that she has a terrible rash that had covered her entire body
Another Thailand experience – having braids done. So sweet huh? It was.. Until Mikah lost the plot and decided she had enough. The result? 3 days later and we still only have half her head braided. She refuses to take half out or go back for the other half to be done. I’ll keep you posted if anything changes.
But there’s a flip side.. I suppose there always is. The memories WE have made have been spectacular! Have we relaxed? Not really.. Have we been lying by the pool working on a tan? Not so much..
But we have been holding hands and dancing to the band at dinner time and we have been splashing in the water together every day. We have been able to sit back and just watch our kids.. Not rush them off to daycare and hurry them through dinner to get to bath time.We have slowed down, even stopped. We have sat back and smiled and realised how quickly time is going, how life is passing us by while we are busy just being busy. We have stopped and counted our blessings. We have sat back and marvelled at our creations and made memories that WE will never forget.. Even if they will.
Now just wish me luck for the plane back..
A very special thank you to my special in-laws who joined us on this trip. When we were counting blessings – you were definately in there too! ❤️
Beautiful pics and great insight into a family holiday 😉