I’ve mentioned before that I love to travel. I really do. I love everything about it, the anticipation beforehand, the wee-hours trip to the airport, the flight itself, EVERYTHING. I even love packing my suitcase. I should probably clarify here and state that weekend trips to visit our family (a 2 hour drive) do not count. Because really, getting ready and going on those is just kind of a pain in the ass. I mean ACTUAL travel that involves pre-planning and airplanes and hotels and such.

ANYWAY. Sunday morning I was watching a documentary on the Discovery Channel called Ice Hotel. It detailed the annual process of building the amazing hotel of snow and ice in the Arctic Circle. I was vaguely aware of the hotel’s existence – from some magazine article I read ages ago – then a similar structure was featured in the Bond movie Die Another Day. But this really clinched it for me. Now I am utterly fascinated, and I have a new obsession. I MUST VISIT THE ICE HOTEL. I’m not really a cold-weather person, but this is just SO FREAKING AWESOME. You have to ride a dogsled from the airport to get there! You sleep on a bed of snow! There is an Absolut bar! Of course, it costs about four grand (each!) for this adventure but hey. After I get both my kids out of daycare that will be pocket change. Right? [What's that you say? Children continue to be expensive, all the way through college and into adulthood? Weddings, what? LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU.]

While I was googling to try and find out more about the hotel, I came across package tours for other chilly destinations. Like Antarctica. Did you know that you can take a cruise to Antarctica? Well, you can. For about 10 grand PER PERSON. Now, I’m all for unique vacation experiences but I’m not sure about this as a tourist spot. Is there anything to do in Antarctica? What’s even down there? Scientific labs? Elephant seals? Snow?

*****

The last few nights AE has talked me into reading from his beloved guide book for Zelda: Ocarina of Time, his current video game obsession. Apparently he decided that since his dad wouldn’t read it to him, he would play Mom for a sucker. Well, it worked, because apparently I have learned NOTHING in over five years of parenting that child. I don’t mind reading it, I suppose, but I preferred our old routine. The one where I was done after getting him bathed and ready for bed, then I could go relax on the couch with the sleepy little one before getting her down for the night. Now, after getting him bathed and dressed, I have to read to him, get him into bed, scare the monsters, get him water and turn on his music. THEN I have to go get the previously-bathed Miss T – who is racked out in her dad’s arms – and get her into bed as well. (My husband has a convenient inability to successfully swaddle and lay down a sleeping infant. Or so he claims.) So now instead of dealing with a portion of the bedtime routines, I am dealing with both in their entirety. BUT I DIGRESS. My point was that last night I was trying to convince AE that we should read something else, an actual story as opposed to video game hints and cheats. But he was maintaining a fairly convincing stance that it is about an ADVENTURE, Mommy. And that makes it an ADVENTURE STORY. And I was all, yes, well, I do not want to read that, let’s please read something else. So finally he says “It is an adventure story, and we are reading it, because THAT IS MY POLICY.” And I cracked up and then read the damn thing, because how can you argue with that?