Celebration of Life, Traveling With Two Kids, & Way Too Much Wine

Over the weekend we had a small gathering in Napa Valley for my late sister. Her birthday was last week and we try to do some sort of celebration every year for it. This is her fourth birthday gone, and so far everyone has shown up every year.

It is such a warm feeling knowing how loved she is and the effort that everyone puts in to show it.

These gatherings are the reason that I know her in such a different way now. Her friends show up with new stories to share and a new light to shine on the person she was. I am grateful for these moments as much as I can be.

There will always be that part of me that wishes I could have had these experiences when she was still here. When she was here, the person I knew her for, was who she was with me, the things we liked to do together, and the memories we made growing up. But, that’s such a small part of who she actually was.

With each person she touched, she was able to bring a new person to life, and give away something special.

The weekend was filled with laughter, tears, and lots of wine- as any trip to Napa should be. It was nice to get out of the house and enjoy a new scenery.

She deserves all the love and remembrance

This was the first time we traveled with two kids overnight. In order to not escalated our frustration, or stress about the small things, we kept our expectations low.

Toddlers and babies are already challenging to begin with, and getting outside the house you never know how they are going to behave. Throwing in a new environment that you have to temporarily “live” in without all your normal back-ups, takes that challenge to another level.

This is where the unwarranted stress comes from. Worrying if they are going to sleep in a new place, if you brought the right toys, if you didn’t leave anything behind etc.

When you pre-panic and think of all the things that could go wrong, they will go wrong. Or you’re waiting for sh** to pop-off, you miss all the good things.

I made sure when I went into Saturday night, I remembered I prepared myself the best I can with my packing. I put the bar low on sleeping through the night, or even getting to bed early. I wasn’t anticipating for the bad to happen, but when it came time for bed, I wasn’t surprised it was difficult.

Our three year old is already a hard one to put down, with all the “one more” books, and songs, the “I need water,” and the trips to the bathroom. He is also one that needs to be left alone in his room otherwise he will keep chatting and playing with you. However, when you are in a hotel, you don’t really get that space.

And when you tell a three year old to lower their voice so they don’t wake the baby, they will get louder. I will say the baby was fairly easy to put down, but as expected most definitely did not sleep through the night.

If I had told myself I needed sleep after a long day in the sun and that I deserved a break because we were on vacation, the frustration I would have had with my toddler for staying up until 11, and the baby waking shortly after that, would have been through the roof.

Your mindset is going to set you up for your thoughts to interpret the circumstance you are in. I kept a positive light one through-out the day, so my thoughts didn’t transcribe everything into “this is bothering me so much, I just want sleep.”

Instead, it invoked interpretation of humor, because that whole time my toddler kept me giggling with his antics of wanting to stay up. The perspective my thoughts had activated emotions, and feelings of positivity.