MEXICO VACATIONS OFT GANG AGLAY---

Dios mio!
Expectations!
I know better.  I know better.  I know better.

I had two daughters with a one year old girl and a six year old boy and my dearest friend come to spend a week with me to celebrate my upcoming birthday.

I pictured sitting at night with wine on the roof top garden sharing women's wisdom.  I pictured kids playing quietly under a mesquite tree on a blanket.  I pictured quiet board games.  Ambling shopping.  Long relieving talks with each of my women individually.  Happily complaining, soothing, laughing.
And craziest of all, I pictured our last night in a courtyard of ours that has a tall rock garden with cactus.  I would place a hundred candles in all the nooks and crannies.  Our Mexican neighbors would come.  We would have an ice cream bar.  My daughter would sing.  So would our two Mexican friends.  We would remember the moment as sterling, fanciful, perfect.

The van that broke down on the way to the airport with a new driver should have been an indicator to me of things to come.  Start with new places to sleep for over stimulated kids.  Add four women all wanting both time together and time individually.  Bug bites.  One large (very) scorpion.  Yes Montezuma's revenge all around.  Me too and I live here. One trip to the doctor. One day with no electricity or water. Credit cards not working. Logistics galore even after much planning. Such work to get to a place to relax that you didn't want it when you got there.  I could go on. 

And still lovely things and moments happened.  Almost none planned.
We fell into them.  Stumbled.  There was a moment in the shade with cross-cultural babies and mamas.  There was a caught moment of coffee and conversation on the roof top.  There was a good long belly laugh led by my six year old grandson--up after bedtime all of us in the darkened kitchen so the baby could sleep.  Pure curing impossible to stop giggles.  We somehow managed a lovely Mexican breakfast out on the main square with kids in tow and picture perfectly happy.  We all took turns babysitting while the others went out to play.  A night out for dinner with slurred Margarita laughter  as wide awake kids waited for functional moms.

Are we tired?  Yes.
Did we relax much? No.
Were we glad to be together? Yes.
Did we have exhausted stressful moments of managing crisis?  Yes.
Did we have magic moments? Yes.
Were any of them planned?  Mostly no.

Expectations.
I know better.  I know better. I know better.
Nothing gold can stay, but gold can come from out nowhere as well.