We just got back from three nights in Vienna to see the Christmas markets, and one night in Budapest on our way back to stay at a water park hotel. We're glad we did the water park. We swam, went outside in the hot water, slid down slides, and stayed in the pools for hours. On our first day in Vienna we realized pretty quickly that this is not the kind of "holiday" we can take with our kids. Kids are basically not interested in architecture. They don't care about palaces. They don't like walking across vast city landscapes. And they really don't like walking through snow that they can't just play in all day. We know this. We knew this before going, but somehow the allure of a Western city, and admittedly the words "Christmas market", were too appealing to resist. By about the middle of our first day there, that list of "Top Ten Things to do with Kids in Vienna" seemed aimed at parents who had no other choice but to spend two days in Vienna with their kids.
When travelling with children in a large, metropolitan city the only real thing that the parents are concentrating on is how to keep them contained: not letting them walk into traffic, not letting them bump into every third person, not letting them grab things from the Christmas market booths. It's so exhausting that the only real remedy to numb the pain is another glass of glugwein. But the trick is not to let yourself get too numb so that your back is turned for any great amount of time, or even for one second. This happened to me. I let the littlest one out of my sight and he promptly walked over to a Christmas market booth, picked up a lovely, little glass snow ball - the kind you shake and it snows - and dropped it. I couldn't look the woman in the eyes when I asked her how much that cost. Twelve dollars later, we were leaving the Christmas market and trying to decide how else to spend the hours that stretched before us.
We found the butterfly garden in the Hofburg Palace. Kids also could care less about exotic butterflies, by the way. But they loved the tunnels, the stairs leading up and over the bridge, the waterfall, and the two Austrian little girls they were chasing. The boys built up a sweat running around, while Billy and I sat slumped in our chairs, an occasional butterfly flitting past, and talked about where we went wrong.
It all felt so hard. Running around in this humid greenhouse was the most fun they'd had. Vacations where they can run around, play with other kids, be in one place the whole time, that's the kind of holiday that makes sense. But right now we had to drag them on to the next place. We went into a gorgeously decorated Italian restaurant where we waited for almost an hour for our food. Ethan started whimpering, he was so hungry. He gobbled up his pizza then fell asleep while we were still waiting for our food! I was a grown-up regressing to my inner-toddler, and I almost started to cry, too. Finally, finally the delicious, mushroom-stuffed ravioli came. By the time I was finished eating, Ethan was leaning back in his chair and snoring. The waiter who came to clear away the dishes started laughing so heartily, that we couldn't help laughing, too, in a slap-happy kind of way.
Finally, back in the hotel, the boys in their bed at last, I climbed into bed myself, uncomfortably full, and read some more of the book we're reading for our book group: Oliver Twist. And then I did cry, reading about those little boys in the orphanage literally starving to death.
And this is where I start counting my blessings, one by one. Alright, I won't list them all here. And I guess there are too many anyway and I wouldn't know where to begin or end.
Our vacation wasn't perfect, but we definitely learned some things. Actually, the second day turned out better than the first, partly because we were more prepared. We spent the entire day at the Shonbrunn palace where we saw a marionette play of The Magic Flute, in German, true, but the boys did enjoy it. They played dress-up in the children's museum, and there was less complaining and moaning. We timed things better and ended the day happily. We walked into a Mexican restaurant where we could tell almost right away that there was some kind of family dispute going on. Weirdly, that felt comforting. The food was so authentic and spicy and good. The family who owned the small, two room restaurant had four kids who were running around. One of the little girls started pulling Gabriel's hat over his head and hugging him. They brought out a cake for the one-year-old's birthday with an enormous candle where they celebrated in the back room and brought a piece for Ethan and Gabriel. When we left the restaurant, this time the boys were up for walking down the streets a bit, right under the giant blue Christmas lights.
The stockings are stuffed and the boys are dreaming of sugarplums, I hope. I also hope the spirit of Christmas, the light, the hope, the love fills all who have managed to read to the end of this post! "God bless us, everyone!"
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