Connemara, Ireland with a Baby

Unfortunately we slept a little too long and missed our flight back to the States the next morning. Airport adrenaline is way more intense than the regular kind, and it was a rather unpleasant way to start the day. Forest, bored at the airport, entertained himself by poking his throat repeatedly while we bought tickets for the next day from a guy who looked like his mom made him apply for the airline job. Anyways, we were so frazzled and this went on for so long that I didn’t notice Forest had been massaging his tonsils until it was too late. Thankfully, we hadn’t had time to have a hearty breakfast, and the pear came out quite unchanged…

Maybe we should have just stayed and pretended to be Irish. I think we could have pulled it off.

A real chatty Irish guy stopped us on the street in Kilkenny to tell us we looked Irish. He asked if we were married and then said, “surely you can’t be married; you look happy.” Then his wife came out of one of the shops and rolled her eyes at him because she’s put up with many years of his shenanigans. Before he left, he told us he auditioned for Game of Thrones and has a statue of Elvis in his front yard. Like I said, very chatty.

But enough of that. Let me tell you about our first week in Ireland: wonderful, terrible, majestic, and very very green.

Our days in Connemara were so beautiful they made up for the really bad nights. If you ever travel to Europe with a baby, make sure to pack Cheerios and really low expectations.

There were a few times, all around 3:00 AM, when Graeme and I both secretly resolved to go back to Dublin at dawn and get on a flight back home. But then the sun would come out and we’d forget our troubles and laugh about how silly we had been, wanting to go back home. Then, around midnight, Forest would wake up to poke our eyes in the dark and we would vow never to travel again.

After five nights of this toddler jet lag torture, he finally started sleeping through the night and we were able to really enjoy Ireland. This is why you shouldn’t take a baby to Europe unless you’re going to be there for a few weeks.

We rented a house in Galway, next to Renvyle Strand House Hotel, which is on 150 acres of green, wild land right by the water. We went for walks every day, stopping to admire the ruins of a castle, pet a friendly dog, or nurse a little boy.

I miss Forest’s baldness a little bit. Now his head is a marvelous mess of ramen noodles. He was just beginning to walk then, which worked out great because Ireland is covered in soft grass.

I named that second photo “About to fall majestically” because everything done in Ireland is majestic.

Just like the highlight of our week in Naples was pizza, some of our fondest memories of Ireland include pears, cheese, and lamb. I also tried a Guiness beer in Connemara, because how could I not, but I discovered I don’t like beer anywhere in the world.

Did you know? There is a type of Irish wildflower that is also a microphone:

It hardly rained during our time in Ireland. The locals were very excited about the warm, dry weather, and there were girls in bikinis at the grocery store and shirtless guys sunbathing in a bit of grass outside a shop.

We would have actually appreciated a bit of rain since we’ll go for 8+ months without it in California, but the weather was still nice and windy enough to wear my medieval hair down, most of which came off when we got back to California in June and it was over a hundred degrees.

Clifden Castle was beautiful and free! There are so many old castles in Ireland, you don’t have to pay to see a lot of them. There are also lots of old men who all look the same. I think it’s the berets.

We had lunch at a pub one day, and Forest danced in his high chair to some lively Irish music. The musicians were a couple of friendly-looking ancient guys, and one of them winked at me, which would have been very inappropriate if he had been forty years younger.

Some day, when I am an old lady, I will wink at strapping young lads in church and then when the pastor tells me to greet my neighbor, I will feel up their muscley arms in a very Christian way. I learned this from the old ladies who do this to Graeme and then turn and give me a nice handshake.

Anyway, we went to Kylemore Abbey the day after the high chair dancing, and a friendly-looking ancient fellow winked at me again, so naturally I walked over and asked, “weren’t you singing in a pub last night?”

Nope. Different guy.

His wife seemed a little concerned.

When I think about traveling again, I can’t decide whether to go somewhere new, or back to Ireland. But Dave Ramsey won’t let me do either, so it’s really not an issue. We had tickets to Sweden in 2018 and decided to let them go because we finally got serious about becoming debt free. That was $2K lost, but still less than what we would have spent if we had gone.

Cancelling that trip was a real turning point for us and we haven’t traveled anywhere since. It helps that it’s also illegal now.

That first week we also went to see Kylemore Abbey, which was under construction but still beautiful. We waited in the car for about an hour because Forest was napping and, being the first child, we didn’t have the heart to wake him. In contrast, we took Grace to Home Depot at 8 PM the other night.