When Things Don’t Go As Planned.

Would you believe me if I said that currently in the trunk of our mini-van are packed bags, complete with hiking gear and all, and they have been there since Monday the 19th. We had planned a truly epic 10-day road-trip from Raleigh to Maine and back, with stops in all our favorite cities in between to see all our favorite people and things. But, for the first time ever, we now have a new adventure to add to our travel logs – a trip that never came to be. Perhaps the bags are still in the car because I not ready to deal with the facts.

The trouble started on Sunday night when Ajay developed high fevers because of his teeth. I feel like he has been teething for the past 6-months with varying degrees of pain, but this was by far the worst. In fact, it has the worst that I have seen in all my three kids. Anyway, he also started getting a bad cold and the combination meant he wanted to be held CONSTANTLY and was fussy when even for a second I put him down.

Then came the nor’easter and with it all that snow right along the path of where we were headed. At first we thought, may be if Ajay had one more day to recover, we can still get on the road and salvage what we can by cutting out some stops. But of course, Ajay needed more time. We kept pushing our departure to “tomorrow” and making various alterations to the trip, but in the end, thanks to the little guy, we really did stay out of some weather troubles by not going at all.

Thankfully, with all the planning that went into it, repeating this trip the next time we get a chance will be easy peasy. Still, it makes me a little sad to imagine all the wonderful things we would have done had the stars aligned. I am hoping that by writing about this, I will shake off my “glass is half full” mentality and move on.

On the positive note, with all the time we’ve had in Raleigh, we got to celebrate Asha’s birthday with her friends at school and at home. And I’ve spent a lot of time cleaning and decluttering as well which sometimes seems to bring me the same kind of euphoria as traveling. I didn’t realize the amount of PR work that was pending for the Hello Namaste! Hindi books as well, and I am happy to say that I’ve been chipping away at that too, which is so huge and exciting in itself.

In the end, Ajay is feeling much better (but still NO TEETH, although we can feel one that’s almost poking out) and we are all together having fun at home and sleeping in our own beds (at least until 2am when every kid in the house finds a way to our bed and it’s like the smallest King-size bed ever….but I digress).

Hope you are having a relaxing Sunday with your favorite people too!

P.S. – Thanks to Ed Emberely’s Little Drawing Book of Trains and Trucks, I can’t stop drawing these beautiful trucks and campers!