1. It’s so fertile here the even the stone walls grow grass.
2. The newer homes here are built with whole walls of windows. If you look up the weather averages in Ireland, you’d say that it’s to get a better view of the grey skies. However, the summers bring a sunrise earlier than 4 am and sunsets later than 10 pm. This means the sun doesn’t come up until mid-morning in the winter and goes down before most are leaving work. You’d want as much vitamin D as you could get, too.
3. For a place that serves potatoes and sausage so often, you’d think they’d have better toilet flushing power. They don’t. And I don’t think I got the toilets to work properly on the first try more than 4 times over the course of 12 days.
4. Light switches in the outside of bathroom doors makes for good-nature fun for friends of bathroom dwellers.
5. There is no top sheet in Ireland. There’s a fitted sheet and a duvet cover on the duvet, even in the middle of summer. No top sheet; and as my husband says, that’s because you don’t sweat enough to need to protect the already easy-to-clean duvet cover in a country with mild summers. No top sheet.
6. One way to discourage cell phone use while driving: halve the width of the driving lanes.
7. Cows, sheep. Moo and baa. This is a great feature for conversations in the car with infants.
8. Every full bathroom we used while traveling in Ireland had an instant shower heater in the stall with us. Irish citizens seem to be eternally concerned with saving every microwatt of electricity that they can manage to save. This means even these instant showers have pull down cords to allow the electricity to flow to the already energy-conserving appliance.
9. The plugs have switches as well. We scoffed at this, at first, as being another hyper-sensitive protocol in Irish homes. Then Rita poked her tiny finger into the outlet hole. It’s the perfect size for a baby finger and there’s far more electricity coursing through those outlets. We were grateful the switch was turned off.
10. One more on the appliance/electricity topic: You can assume whatever it is you’re trying to switch on has a secret trick. There might be a switch on the cord, like what Americans typically have on the window lights at Christmas time. There might be a switch under the lampshade. You might have to pound a Guinness and dance a jig before the light will come on. They like to keep you on your toes.
11. The windy road sign should be in the national flag.
12. The landscapes actually look like patchwork quilts. And I’m sure there are shamrocks all over those rolling hills, as well.

One major perk of traveling with an infant is that you get to board the plane with all of the big shots and priority customers. Take that, Planned Parenthood (ha. Joke.).

Anyone who as traveled by air knows there’s plenty of waiting on plane before taking off, so the hours keep adding up. Waiting is hard. We spend our lives thinking about the next step and when the anticipation has to pass in an uncomfortable seat with a squirmy and tired almost-toddler in your arms, it feels impossible.

I was not in my best state of mind at this point. I struggle with anxiety, but after years of help and working on strategies to cope, I am generally in solid footing (or at least I know how to get to that solid footing). Unfortunately, I wasn’t there today and take off was stressful for me (and Kevin, who held my hand physically and emotionally until we were cruising). Thankfully, Rita breastfed during take off and fell asleep as we reached a higher altitude.

Along comes the loudest flight attendant in the fleet. “WATER?! SODA?! COFFEE?!”

Rita stirred, but stayed asleep. We’re counting the minutes, praying she’ll get at least an hour and a half of sleep.

Next came our deafening attendant with the meals: “WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE? CHICKEN PICCATTA, PASTA, OR VEGGIE QUICHE?!”

Rita doesn’t know how to say piccatta yet, but she was now awake enough to answer. Darn it.

So began the events that will send Kevin directly to heaven without detour. For the next five and a half hours, Kevin walked Rita up and down the plane by either holding her in his arms or leaning his long body down to help her take early walking steps as she passed the admiring (mostly) people in the aisles.

Rita was cutely talkative throughout that aforementioned meal, but also extremely mobile and squirmy. Though she wasn’t crying or kicking the seats in front of us, we had the misfortune of being seated behind someone who clearly didn’t appreciate her existence.

It’s really all about who you have around you when it comes to your comfort level with your child’s noises, either at Mass or on an airplane. It was clear, through her unabashed glares and sourpuss faces directed at Rita behind her, that this woman wanted silence in her general area.

So Kevin earned Dad of the Year. He spent a lot of time in the middle of the plane where the drink carts are stored near the bathrooms in a cut through corridor with the wiggle worm.

At one point, Sourpuss walked back to the bathroom area and stepped on Rita’s foot, seemingly on purpose. Kevin’s dad protective instinct went into high gear and he went off on her, as politely as he could, under the circumstances. She huffed into the bathroom and apologized when she came back out.

Only 4 more hours until we land. Hi, Greenland.

The rest of the flight was a revolving pattern of Kevin walking with Rita, me taking over for short stints, both of us trying to provoke a nap, and counting down the minutes. In case you were wondering, Rita has no interest in screen time. Bummer.

We finally landed. Our layover was really tight and we were fortunate that the gates were near each other. Kevin had enough time to interact with one more sourpuss, the gate attendant, to try to get our seat situation sorted out. We had paid for extra leg room, but the airline split us up and took away that leg room (no refund yet). The attendant was defensive, but eventually seated us in normal leg room seats, together.

At least we were together. If we hadn’t been, one of the three of us would have been checked into a hospital for psych issues by the end of the day.

You see, it was around now that we discovered that we had run through our supply of diapers. And Rita had been chugging water for the last few hours of our transatlantic flight. It would just have to wait.

And wait, the theme of this day, continued to plague us as we faced more stall on the Tarmac. Our pilot, a young guy, made the beginning flight announcements while standing in the middle of the aisle on the small plane, rather than in the faceless comfort of the cockpit. We appreciated that, but it was a sign that this wasn’t an ordinary situation. His training instructor joined us on the flight, so there were three pilots stuffed into the cockpit.

The pre-flight check must have been slow and painstaking because it led to us sitting in our seats with an exhausted and rambunctious baby for at least 70 minutes. Only then did we begin our take-off.

The flight was slotted to be one hour. We think it was more like 75 minutes, making an enormous impact to poor Rita.

Long story short, Rita did what babies do and used her diaper. Number two. And the poor girl had to sit in it for more than forty-five minutes because her parents didn’t have a diaper in the bag. With about thirty minutes left on the plane, Rita began screaming in pain.

This is the most placid child you’ve ever seen. She never gets upset and she’s usually tough as nails. The fact that she was screaming to the point of making herself sick is significant.

The woman adjacent to Kevin was in tears with empathy for her pain. We were doing everything we could to console her, unaware of exactly what was causing her to cry like this.

I sprinted off the plane as soon as I could and ripped that diaper off to discover the worst rash I’ve seen on her tiny body. She was shaking with pain as I wiped the offending substance from her body. After cleaning her, I picked her up, kissing her every few moments, and walked out of the restroom with a naked-butt-baby.

My wonderful parents met us at the end of the terminal, having been forewarned by Kevin via text about the nightmare Rita and we had just endured.

The car ride involved a lot of ranting about the day, but one takeaway from the whole situation was the fact that Rita smiled within five minutes of the aforementioned diaper removal. She was still our joyful girl.

We need to learn from her.

Oh, yeah. And they lost one of our bags. But someone delivered it to us the next day.

We are so privileged to be able to go on such a trip and to face the kinds of first world problems that we faced on this travel day. Horrifying relative to our cushy life? Yes. But we are so much better off than so many.

Thank you, God, for the lessons you’re trying to teach us through days like that.

That title. A tad dramatic, you might think. But to us, it was the longest, hardest day we’ve ever faced.

I woke up at about 4 am, Dublin time, and got out of bed in order to get enough caffeine in me to get my day started properly. I fed Rita, to ensure she’d keep sleeping until the last moment before we left and went downstairs to chug the good stuff. Coffee. It was coffee.

Kevin followed about an hour later and we enjoyed our last Dublin breakfast. I think Kevin is going to miss the toast and Kerry Gold that he’s gotten used to while here. Back to Cheerios for a while.

We had a sad moment of reflection last night, realizing that this is probably our last 24 hours in Ireland for several years. If God blesses us with another baby, traveling with an older child, Rita, and the new one will seem insurmountable.

We don’t know how crazy we’ll become in the next several years, but perhaps we’ll be crazy enough to try it. Chances are, however, that we will remain in the States for quite some time. It’s hard to bear that we won’t see these warm family members for an indefinite amount of time.

As quietly as we could, we did our final packing and loaded the car. At 7, Rita woke up and we did our final check through before leaving the sleeping house that had been our home for two weeks.

The trip to the airport was pretty uneventful and the car rental drop off guy was extremely friendly. Our van ride to the airport was short and we entered an extensive and winding line feeding eager travelers towards the Delta check-in counter.

This was the first of many stints of long waiting for the day and it was probably the most painless.

Next: security screening number one. More long lines and shoe removals. Then, down to the U.S. customs where we waited in another snaking line and went through security…again. Because the U.S. knows how to do it better than the Irish, apparently (bitterness is starting to creep in here. oops).

The customs agent took our photos (why?) and asked us to confirm our baggage on a grainy computer screen. He wanted to know if we had anything to declare and we told him we had two apples in our bag. They are a threat to the agricultural integrity of the United States, so they had to be tossed. But not before me and Rita snagged a bite each. Take that.

We didn’t have long to wait in the gate area, as we had done so many hours of line-standing prior to boarding, so that’s nice.

Rita check-in: She had been so good throughout all of this, despite the fact that she should have gotten a nap during these hours of waiting. She is, however, the daughter of two extremely curious and observant people. The airport affords too much to observe and learn for her to sleep.

In part two, learn about our flights and why this title actually fits with the day’s events. Know in advance that both Kevin and I are glad we went to Ireland and that the final day of the vacation will NOT trump the prior two weeks. It just really stunk.

Shoot! I’m so late. I forgot to write this. Here is our day in note form:
-Rita woke up twice last night, ugh. After being up late watching golf. Inconceivable.
-Rita woke up around 7:30 and we all ate, followed her around, and she was super talkative.
-nap for Rita at 9:30 was rest time for Mommy and Daddy.
-visited Florrie, who is 95 and Kevin’s great aunt. She’s in pretty poor health and her dementia is significant. It was hard.
-we had lunch at the local GAA club, which is kind of like a community country club, by less highbrow. Great, solid, yummy food in a comfy atmosphere.
-we headed to the area of Dublin called Dun Laoghaire. Rita got so unbelievably upset and I couldn’t figure out why. Then she threw up. Car sickness.
-we debated going back home, but we decided to walk down the protective sea walls (and get a but of ice cream) and back.
-back home, Rita down for a nap, then Kevin walked to the store to get wine for our beautiful hosts.
-Rita was feeling much better after a two hour nap. We chased her around a but, I took her on a short run with the stroller, and we are a delicious chicken curry.
-Rita took five solid steps with me and Mary, at least two occasions, about which she got very excited.
-relaxed the rest of the night.
-excited to go home, but very sad to leave.
We’re leaving to the house at 7:30 am tomorrow morning (2:30 EST and 11:30 pm PST). Pray for us!

55 degrees, raining, misting and windy. On August 11 at 10:00 am. As one of Kevin’s family members said today, “This is Ireland.”

We peeled ourselves out of bed at about 7:45 to the Rita alarm clock. This is definitely sleeping in for us, but we hardly know what is normal anymore. Today began and maintained a misty, moisty attitude all day, which we knew would be the case. We looked forward to a rest day, while still delighting in our location in Kinsale.

Rita was a cute almost toddler this morning. At one point, she was holding onto the side of the couch and looked at me with this confident and giddy grin that told me, “Mommy, I’m going to walk to you right now. Get ready.”

And she did! She purposefully let go of the couch arm and toddled over to me. One, two, three, four and a big lean into Mommy. Who was more excited about this?! Probably me.

We all had the pleasure of a long morning nap for Rita. She caught up on much needed sleep and Kevin and I got to go for independent runs in the damp climate (Kevin ran 3.5, though Strava only credited him with 3.4, and I ran 2.75). You would never know what was sweat and what was rain. Both of us were soaked.

Soon thereafter we ventured into town for lunch with Joe and Eileen Hayden, cousins of Kevin’s father. The Blue Haven was a hotel, upscale bar/pub, and a restaurant on the corner of one of the busiest intersections in this compact town.

Rita was so stinking wiggly. We haven’t seen her like that and we chalk it up to tiredness. To be clear, she was still extremely well-mannered for an 11 month old, but I definitely burned as many calories wrestling with her as I consumed in my Thai red curry veggie dish.

A housekeeping trip to Lidl and a direct drive “home” brings us to what is essentially the end of the day for us. Rita is napping (actually… I’d better go rouse her so as not to have a 9 pm bedtime) and we plan to eat leftovers and relax the rest of the night. This day was much needed.

Don’t tell him, but I think I’m catching Kevin almost napping on the couch in front of me. Hmmmm.

Our pictures are going to be limited today, but please take a peek at them:

Bonus! This is a street view video of what our drive will look like tomorrow. Enjoy.

She didn’t fall asleep. Bummer.

We trekked up the side of the hill on which our apartment is built to explore the walk that our absent host suggested. This walk brought us to the top of St. James Fort‘s peninsula, affording us an almost 360 degree view of the city of Kinsale. There is ancient history stored in this city and this fort in particular, so I’ll let you read about that on Wikipedia. This is the view we saw (though ours was during the bright daylight on this rain-free day).

After a few failed tripod photo op attempts, we headed back down to begin our hunt for dinner. Rita was in her joyful mood, but we could tell it wouldn’t last forever.

The bar next to this apartment was, get this, only for alcohol. They literally sold zero food there. That wouldn’t be allowed in Virginia, at least. Rita can’t drink yet, so we got in the car to search for grub. We found it in The Spaniard and oh boy are we glad we ventured out for dinner.

This restaurant sits on a hill in such a position that the cars have to hug the side of its walls to practically make a U-turn to continue climbing up the mountain. It had a pub side (exactly how you’d imagine an Irish pub with low ceilings and the smell of Guinness and smoke in the air) and a restaurant side. The plaster on the walls was yellow interrupted by dark wood beams in a Tudor style. But this was clearly an older place, rather than renovated to look old-new.

Rita was quite a handful here, as we dared to bring butternut squash squeezy pouch instead of a fruity one, but who could blame her? She’s had a LONG week with EVERYTHING completely new. When our food came, as it tends to do so quickly in this country, she enjoyed some warm carrot sticks and cauliflower. That kept her happy for a few minutes.

And, boy, are we grateful! Kevin is quoted as saying he thinks that might be the best meal he’s ever had, definitely in Ireland. We each had our eye on two fish dishes (sea bass and a lemon sole), so we got one of each and shared as we could. I’m not a foodie, so I don’t want to attempt to describe the flavors that caused me to slow down and savor. It was just buttery and delicious, okay?

We’re going to eat it for breakfast, too, FYI.

Rita finally got to start her long sleep and we relaxed this evening, as well. Our evenings are lasting far longer into the night than we’re used to, but we are overwhelmed with gratitude for this trip. We don’t want to waste a moment of it.

We will remain in Kinsale for all of tomorrow and tomorrow night. Because we expect rain, our only planning outing is to meet up with one of Kevin’s Cork family members for lunch. Rita the tired Pita will catch up on her naps under Irish rain in this apartment by the sea.

Pop! Rita’s head peeked out from below the rim of the pack ‘n play in the corner of our B&B room again. We enjoyed our last of the B&B breakfasts on the trip and checked out of the Newton Farm B&B (or Newton Country Farm House).

We drove to Cobh (pronounced “Cove,” therefore: I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it). You’ve heard of Cobh, or at least you’ve seen it in a movie. This is the harbor that was the last stop for the Titanic before it hit the iceberg. There is an incredible cathedral on the side of the hill that slopes down into the harbor’s waters with a spire that reaches up into the clouds.

In keeping with our tradition of never leaving a Catholic church Cobh unvisited, we entered the amazing Cobh Cathedral of St. Colman, where a little Irish lady gave us a miraculous medal for Rita. Walked down the steep inclines to the waterfront where we looked around, peeked into the museum and got a tiny surprise for some people…

Then up the 35% (steepest grade Kevin has ever seen, even more than San Fran) short cut back to our car. Onward to Cork. We had a hard time identifying the city center (centre), but we settled on a parking garage and found it to be like a mix of a business center and Charleston. We walked around and found some popular spots for lunch that were crammed busy and ended up at Rearden’s. This pub is obviously a good spot for night music as it’s large and has an actual stage. Though, during the day, that expansive space made it the best restaurant for us so we could relax with a bit of breathing room.

We drove in a somewhat roundabout way to the apartment in Kinsale, by virtue of making a few wrong turns. That, again, was a blessing as we got to see most of the best views of this little harbor town. Kevin went with the Dave Hillgrove parking philosophy, which gave us what turned out to be the only available spot near the apartment.

This apartment is a townhouse in one of the most visibly rich areas of Kinsale and belongs to a college fraternity brother of Kevin’s. This fellow Phi Delt happens to be visiting the U.S. at the same time we’re in Ireland and he offered us his home.

I know you’re all dying to know just how many minutes of napping Rita had today, so I won’t wait any longer. She slept for thirty minutes in the car in the morning and thirty minutes in the car on our way to Kinsale. Therefore, as ever on this trip, we know she’s a sleepy head. We’re trying to get her to sleep now (5:15pm) before heading off for what is supposed to be a breathtaking walk around the peninsula.

Today might be a two-post day. Lucky

Rita’s little head popped up out of her pack ‘n play at 7 and she discovered she was in the same room as her parents. Kevin and I had one of the best nights of sleep since the trip began (and possibly since weeks before it began). Don’t tell Rita because she’ll want to share our room from now on.

Breakfast in our B&B was served at 8:30, so we had plenty of time to play with Rita and prepare ourselves for the full breakfast spread. We surveyed the room (with our ears) and found that we were the only Americans among two Irish, four French, and four German patrons. Rita was the most adorable of all, but no one seemed to play the peekaboo or waving game that so many other strangers tend to play with babies. Too early?

Once again, the question: should we try to get her to nap or count on her napping in the car? We tried, I tried painting outside, but she just wasn’t having it. So off we went for a little drive around the sea’s countryside. The girly passed out within fifteen minutes and Kevin and I enjoyed views of the sun stretching between openings in the gray and yellow clouds over patchwork fields.

We arrived first in Fermoy, a destination only because it gave her enough time to nap decently in the car. We did a drive through tour of the center (centre) of town and then hopped back on the road towards Lismore, a castle nearby. In the town, we delighted in being the very first customers of the day at Foley’s on the Mall. Hungry tourists.

It’s a little uneasy, in my view, to place stock in visiting castles in Ireland, as the only castles here were built by Romans or Brits (the oppressors). This castle is still owned and lived in privately (I’m imagining the goings on of Downton ladies and gentlemen behind the stone walls), but you can pay to tour around their gardens. The gardens were, of course, GAR-jus and full of both edible and beautiful plants.

Lismore also has an art gallery on grounds, which excited me. Unfortunately, this art gallery will be known at the location where I made the final transition to believing that there is ART and then there is DESIGN. Right now, people in the “art world” are valuing design and political commentary void of mastery of the craft… in my humble opinion. Daddy, I’ve come over to the light side.

The art was some vague commentary on the struggle of the artist, but was a series of 7′ x 10′ brown linen with loose circular shapes repeated identically across the entire panel, row by row. And then that was repeated on at least six of those 7′ x 10’ panels. Design, not art.

Anywayzzzzz

We had a glorious time walking around the gardens. Rita had a large plot of idyllic grass to crawl or walk around on, but she preferred to sit on it and make a new friend (see pictures).

After weaving our way back onto the country roads, we found ourselves behind a giant farm tractor. Giant. And slow. But rather than kill us all, Kevin wisely stayed behind Mr. Tractor almost all of the 20 minute drive to Youghal.

How did you pronounce that last city in your mind? I bet you didn’t think it was a homophone of “y’all.” But it is. Perhaps it was the weather or the time of day, but I almost called this post, “Y’all don’t really need to visit Youghal”  because of our short time there. Youghal is a seaside town, but it’s not quite as charming as Dungarvan or Ardmore (coming up next). It was little dirty and it didn’t seem like there was anything but narrow sidewalks to visit. On we trudged to pick up some strawberries and grapes from the local Supervalu then back on the road.

Ardmore was a new town for Kevin; one of which he’d never heard. However, it’s one we will both look back on as possessing one of the most gorgeous views we’ve held in our lives. Ardmore, as I mentioned, is another seaside town that abuts the water of the Atlantic Ocean along a peninsula. We parked near The Cliff House Hotel (fancy schmancy) and began the Ardmore Cliff Walk.

Whoa. We were hugging the side of the land with the sea expanding evermore to our left. Imagine, the next closest piece of land out there is Wales, due east.

Though it was rainy and windy, because we had the whole cliff to ourselves, it was silent. We had to dream up the sounds of the ocean because it was so far below us. St. Declan once had his monastery up here and I can see why he chose it as the place to spend all day praying to God.

Rita, once again, was behind on napping. The level of anxiety that would have inhabited me a fortnight ago if Rita had gone 5 hours without napping would be an 11 on a 10 point scale. This trip is teaching me that my mantra and trust should be in the phrase, “it’ll all work out.” She fell asleep just fine in the car on the way to Dungarvan for our dinner.

Though we had a very tired baby, we enjoyed dinner at 360 Cookhouse in Dungarvan. Kevin had the best pizza he’s ever had in Ireland and I had a scrumptious Irish beef burger with sweet potato fries. I mean, chips (which means they don’t count as fries).

It’s 9:00 pm. We’re exhausted, so we’re going to sneak back up into our room from where we sit in the living room of our B&B and hopefully not wake a snoozing baby. G’night!