Finland Has It All

K.,
In answer to your question: how does it feel to be thousands of miles from my kids? I present you with this photo from our hotel…

Divine solitude.

My Better Half and I had a great time in Finland. Disregarding the seasonal alcoholism, the Finns have got their shit together.  Helsinki and the neighboring suburb of Espoo are overrun by bike paths and walking trails. Public transportation gets you everywhere. The food was delicious, the people were kind and absolutely fluent in English and happy to use it, and if the sun ever set at night, I didn’t see it.

We sauna-ed, biked, shopped, dined, slept, milled about on our schedule, and happily forgot for a few days that we are parents. After about a three hour stretch of not thinking about my kids, it was actually a shock to my system to realize: “Holy crap, we have three kids at home!” I was amazed to find out how easy it was to not think about Jamie, Kai, and Leo for days on end.

I’m sad to say, though, that the boys were inconsolable without us.

Sobbing into their bath.

Miserable to embark on a hike with their aunt and her new beau.

So very, very sad.

 

In fact, their tears made it nearly impossible for the paint to adhere to the wood of these birdhouses their grandfather hand-built this winter in anticipation of babysitting.

Finally missing the boys at the end of our trip, the homecoming was not exactly as I imagined. Jamie did joyfully run to me, yelling: “Mama! Mama! Mama!” Leo ran around me to get to his father, yelling: “Dada! Dada! Dada!” And Kai refused to leave his aunt’s new boyfriend’s lap or even look at us, angrily muttering: “No.” Later My Better Half reasoned that Kai, in his own complicated way, was showing us his frustration at our extended absence. At 11 pm that night, when Kai woke up crying, I finally got to hug him, but only because the aunt’s boyfriend had gone to bed.

The grandparents seemed to handle the 5 days of babysitting without too much stress. As we hugged them goodbye a few days later, they even showed willingness to do this kind of thing again. Great, how’s your July?

-A.