Kai and Maria Are Back
I picked up Kai and Maria at the airport last night. I’m very happy to have them both home again! They were both exhausted, and Kai’s voice was hoarse, and he had lost some weight. It was a vacation of extremes: they alternated between Kai having a lot of fun, and having horrible tantrums (usually several each day, including the middle of the night). As I mentioned before, he rarely has tantrums at home. We’ve traveled with him before, but this was the first time he’s gone away with just one parent. So, note to other parents: don’t send your toddler on vacation with just one parent! I got a sample of his tantrums as we drove home from the airport. For the whole ride home, he was crying like a broken record, “go away Mommy - I don’t like you”. His tantrum didn’t end until about 45 minutes after we got home. He finally settled down and had some dinner, and he had a good night’s sleep (I think for the first time since they left).
But they also had a lot of fun. Kai is very proud of his performance in his skiing lessons. He’s told me several times how he was skiing, going up the kiddie lift, etc., all by himself. Tony (Maria’s dad) also went skiing for the first time in 50 years. The first time down he realized too late that he didn’t remember how to stop, and had a massive wipeout. But he was unfazed and kept on skiing for several hours (after re-learning how to stop!). Kai had a lot of fun visiting with his Aunt Yoko and Uncle James (Maria’s sister and her boyfriend) too. They all went to Red Rocks, and Kai got to run around on the stage - given his recent obsession with the Eurythmics concert videos, being on stage was a big deal for him. Maria took a lot of pictures with the digital camera, so I’ll try to download them this weekend and post them on the site.
Maria has a lot of work to catch up on, so it’ll be a Daddy and Kai weekend. Here’s to hoping that he settles back into his old groove quickly!
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