(I wrote this yesterday but it got lost in email cyberspace I guess)

This is the post where I complain, just be forewarned up front.

Noah is sick. He has a cold which is getting slowly worse. This morning he
was so congested from sleep that he had trouble breathing/coughing and woke
up afraid at 4:30am. After he is up, he is fine. Audibly congested but
that's it. He swears he is not sick. But he ate hardly anything at
breakfast :-(

Stupidly we dragged him into town. He wants to shop and I'm still desparate
to get out so it was easy to justify but still a mistake in judgement. Sure
enough, he was hit by a bout of diahhrea while we were walking through the
Old Quarter - the worst possible place to find a bathroom. Thankfully we
found one and then hit the first taxi back to the hotel. Before we could
make it back to the hotel, he fell sound asleep in the taxi and is still
sleeping now. When he wakes up, I'll dose him with Immodium and get him a
nice big glass of ice water. Hopefully that will do the trick. But this
means I'm back to hotel-bound for at least a day or so. After battling the
heat today, that doesn't sound too bad! Haha.

And this brings me to the complaining portion of this entry. It is HARD
being so far away from everything and being on such a tight budget. I know
it is a "grass is greener" thing. Our hotel is private, extremely quiet,
lovely. It is huge and sprawling and we have a wownderful pool and great A/C
and a full kitchen. But it is far FAR from downtown which means either
paying $5 each way for a taxi or trying to arrange our day around the hotel
shuttles which drive *sort of* into town and back 4 times a day. We have yet
to coordinate our trips well enough to catch the free shuttle back so there
is always at least one taxi fare involved in any outing.

If it were just Tony and I here it would be easy. We'd pack up Addison and
hit the road on the first shuttle in the morning and be gone until sunset.
We could explore all the shops and eat wherever we felt like. But it is a
lot harder with the kids in tow. Noah gets tired really fast in this heat
and Tony can't carry him for too long. Dalton gets tired carrying the
backpack full of gear. And kids, in general, just do not like to shop. It is
boring. And the walking to get to all the shopping and then the subsequent
lack of buying makes it A LOT worse. Plus I am an *agonizing* shopper even
in the best of situations. It is hard for me to buy anything, I usually have
to look many times and think about it and then agonize before I buy. The Old
Quarter is too much for me. It requires decisiveness that I don't have.
Shopping there is literally torture for me!

So we have a plan. I have a list of things I really want to buy. I'm going
to send it with Tony and he is going to go with whichever of the two older
boys wants to go with him and they are just going to get everything I want
in one afternoon. No little kids or gear in tow, no whining toddlers with
sore feet, no urgent need for a bathroom or stops for bottles or diaper
changes. Just hard core shopping.

So another bit of advice - for those visiting with children DEFINITELY try
to stay somewhere central or, if not, budget for at least $20/day for taxi
fare. It is just too hard with kids to arrange to leave for what amounts to
many hours away from the hotel. I would LOVE to be able to pop in and out of
our hotel at will and just do half-hour shopping stints, run out into the
streets for meals whenever the urge strikes, not be far from the hotel in
case of a need for a nap, a rest, etc. The trade off is the noise - it is
SUPER noisy all day and night downtown. And the air quality is terrible and
it is quite a bit hotter off the water. But if you are bringing little kids,
it is probably worth it for the convenience and spontanaeity factor that
little kids require.