Birthday Break

I had grand plans for my birthday this year: I was finally going to go to Rome! I've been wanting to go for years and year and just somehow never quite got round to it. I'd even chosen which hotel we were going to stay in and was just finalising which dates we were both free to go, as well as which days my parents were free to look after Tully...

The more perceptive of you may have spotted the use of the past tense above! Well, Mark now has to go to Seattle the week before my trip to New Orleans. His flight lands just 3 hours before mine leaves. If all was well and good this ought to just about give us enough time to meet at the airport and hand over parental responsibility.

But it is a little close for comfort, and even assuming that there were no flight delays poor jetlagged Mark would be sole parent from 9am Saturday morning and have to survive the entire weekend looking after the monster haivng come stright off a 17 hour journey and an 8 hour time difference. After much cogitating, Mum and Dad have been enlisted to help. Now, I know they'd be more than happy to look after Tully again just a couple of weeks later, but even I think it would be a bit mean of us to go and leave her again so soon afterwards...

So now, do we take Tully to Rome or plan something else? I've had mixed reviews of Rome with small children - a couple of people say it's really not good for someone her age whilst others have taken their little ones and said it was good. Either way, when it came down to it, neither Mark or I have ever fancied the idea of sharing a hotel room with her and have actively avoided it... Where's the fun in having to go back to the room around her bedtime, and sitting in the dark with the tv on quietly waiting for the morning to come when we can have fun again. Very little if you ask me.

So, a bit of a leap here, but we've booked to go to Centerparcs at Whinfell Forest. Still, despite the change in direction of the choice of weekend break I'm quite looking forward to it...