Thinking About: Envy to admiration

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

That’s the motto many of us hold close to steel ourselves as we scroll through Instagram and see someone doing something, having something, we wish for ourselves. But isn’t comparison inevitable?

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Last week of school (& Friday Links)

The countdown is on! Only four more days of school. You can feel it in the air—a buzzy mix of sugar and anticipation, as everything seems to wrap up with popsicles!

Of course we also signed the kids up for lots of summer daycamp activities, so it’s not exactly dog days ahead.

Speaking of activities, we have an interesting one planned for Hudson this weekend. He’s going to a 3-hour etiquette class with a bunch of his buddies. I think there will be something like 9 boys in all. I’m so curious to hear how it goes. I’m hoping he’ll be excited to show off what he learns and pass along some tips to Skyler—and to us! Otherwise, we’re doing our best to wrap up work on projects around the house before the kids are out and before summer travel begins, while also making this last week fun and exciting.

Hope you have some fun plans this weekend! Here are some links of note… 

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Where to, when? Best ages to travel

Aron and I were reminiscing the other night and thinking back fondly to our trip to Thailand. It occurred to me that we sort of lucked out that Hudson could still squeeze into a stroller. (By the way, just saying that makes the trip feel like a million years ago—I can’t imagine him in a stroller right now!) We could have Skyler ride in a backpack while scooting him along—leaving us free to be destination-focused or distracted by each other, as the situation called for. And I imagine it curbed a lot of complaining.

All to say, there are practical benefits to traveling with young children, just as there are with older ones. They cost less at restaurants, fit in small beds, and can be ported to and fro when needed, just to name a few. Babies bring very few advantages—mostly hardship and frayed nerves—but they are extremely easy to feed on the road, especially if you’re nursing. And while I rarely get to lounge on beach chairs and read a book these days, that did happen on occasion with a baby—they nap a lot!

My guess is that everyone choosing to travel with children would say it’s easiest when they’re older—and of course I never think there’s any wrong age to travel with kids—but I wonder if there are some destinations that work best for certain ages?

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