Home and already homesick

Screaming baby on a high speed train, no portable crib at the Madrid hotel, bumped from our bulkhead bassinet seats to middle of economy, screaming baby laying on the airplane tray table, and 3am wakeups for several days…where do I begin?!

We left our apartment in Sevilla the morning of March 26th (my mom’s 61st birthday) and headed to the train station. We had booked a high speed train from Sevilla to Madrid so we could take the direct flight back to Dallas on the 27th, and thought Silas would enjoy a real train ride! The train station wasn’t too busy but we had to wait for our platform to be announced before we went through security.

Feeling very European!

Brennan and Silas decided to go to McDonald’s to get nuggets (for breakfast 🤨) but ended up having to leave before they got the nuggets because everything happened so quickly! Platform was announced, security lines filled up quickly, we finally went through and were some of the last people on the train. We got settled in and had a prettt sweet setup! We had bought both Silas and Clementine seats (neither were required) and had a table between our 4 seats facing each other, with my parents behind us. We dropped the Doona in one seat so Clementine didn’t need to be held the whole way.

The AVE train had one stop (Córdoba) on its way to Madrid. I think my dad clocked it at 177mph at one point - but it really didn’t feel like we were moving that fast! The ride was very smooth and the Spanish scenery was beautiful, just as I remembered it 15 years ago - rolling green hills, olive trees EVERYWHERE, old Spanish countryside palacios, babbling brooks, even mountains!

The kids were good for most of the ride, but about 30 minutes outside of Madrid, the train stopped for an hour or so (unplanned). Clementine apparently wanted to keep moving and decided to cry inconsolably at that point. Thankfully, the luggage storage area between passenger cars was basically soundproof to the passengers so I ended up just holding her there until we disembarked in Madrid.

Once we got to Madrid Atocha station, it was chaos. We had planned to just grab a couple taxis but th station was under construction and we ended up having to hunt for the taxis with all our luggage in tow. Mom successfully called an uber for her and my dad, while Brennan and I grabbed 2 taxis - I took Clementine and he took Silas. Unfortunately, our hotel was in a no car zone, so all 3 cars dropped us at different locations, leaving us to navigate the cobblestone streets with bags (and kids) alone!

We did finally all make it to our hotel, checked in and thankfully our room was ready. It was a beautiful historic hotel with a courtyard area, and all rooms were apartment-style with kitchens! Our room was nice but of course had some “quirks”…tiled stairs leading up to the bathroom and both bedrooms, no bathtub and no portable crib in the room. Immediately, we went back downstairs to request the portable crib, but the hotel casually informed us they were all being used so we had to do without. I think we would’ve checked out and found a different hotel with Silas at Clementine’s age if this had happened, but with Clementine, we agreed she would be just fine in the king bed with pillows around her. This moment felt pivotal — an explicit marker of how much I’ve grown from first-time parent to second-time parent, and of how thoroughly this trip has taught me to just go with the flow.

At 2:30pm, we all met downstairs and started walking to our lunch spot - an “arroceria” specializing in paella - an hour and a half past our original reservation time! Thankfully, they got us right in. We walked to our table seeing giant bowls of paella on tables and the fragrant aroma around us everywhere, our mouths watering. We were seated and then were reminded (by a vocal baby) that Spanish lunchtime falls right in the middle of Clementine’s afternoon naptime, so I immediately had to take her outside the restaurant to get her to fall asleep. Luckily, I was able to successfully transfer her to the stroller so we could all have a peaceful lunch!

We indulged in 2 giant pans of paella - one even had the traditional ingredient of rabbit - and believe it or not, there wasn’t much left when we were finished!

We all wanted dessert to celebrate mom’s birthday, but agreed that would need to wait until later. More immediately, we needed to walk off the heavy carb lunch and explore Madrid, since we were right in the heart of it. We walked up the hilly streets toward the royal palace (yes, Spain has a palace, king and queen, the whole shebang). On our way, we passed the Arab Wall, which is one of the oldest surviving structures in Madrid. It’s not surprising that the oldest surviving structure was built by the Moors, but what I didn’t realize is that almost all of Madrid’s origins are Islamic, as opposed to the Roman roots (then Moors, then Christian reconquista) of Andalusian cities.

As we walked toward the royal palace, we noticed a a lot more beggars on the street. We had been pretty insulated from beggars and homelessness in the other 3 cities on this trip but it was very prevalent (sadly) in Madrid. We also noticed a lot of street performers in front of the Royal palace, certainly took away from the grandeur for me; however, my son was loving it. He had amassed a small collection of low-value Euros and decided he would give a coin to each character so he could take a photo with them. Hey - whatever makes the kid happy!

Mom took some pictures with the kids in front of the palace and as we were walking away to check out the view from the hilltop we were on, a man approached her with what looked like a newspaper with her photo on it! It took her a minute to realize what she was looking at - he had taken her photo with the kids and immediately printed it onto a newspaper - and she decided it was worth hassling with the guy to buy it since it had the date on it - remember it was her birthday!

We walked to the edge of the hilltop plaza and took in the views - snowcapped mountains(!!), rolling hills, Madrid sprawling out before us.

We linger on this plaza maybe a bit longer than we had planned, soaking in these views as our epic European adventure comes to a close. And it wouldn’t be truly Spain if there wasn’t a kiosk serving beer and wine right there in the plaza, now would it?!

We walked back toward the hotel and popped into a bustling market, with serval bars and restaurants and a bakery! We had to get some sweet treats to celebrate mom’s birthday. As the guys watched the kiddos in the nearby plaza, Mom and I ordered churros, chocolate cake, lemon tart and cappuccinos. We walked back to our hotel to enjoy them in the courtyard, along with some Spanish wine. Even Clementine got to indulge for her Dee Dee’s birthday!

After we enjoyed dessert, we all went to our room to sort out luggage and get the kids ready for bed. Remember when I mentioned there wasn’t a bathtub in the room? This is a horrific photo of me but Clementine was certainly enjoying her sink bath!

Silas decided to forego a shower until the morning so he could take one with his daddy. It was about this time that I checked in to the flight and realized our seats had changed - the whole place type had changed. We were no longer in the bulkhead (where the bassinet can be set up), but a few rows back in the middle of the middle of economy. I was LIVID! I called American and explained the situation and they told me there was nothing they could do. At this point, Brennan and I are both low-key panicking because we know we will be holding Clementine for a 10.5 hour DAYTIME flight tomorrow. Knowing we couldn’t do much that night, we decided we would try to handle at the airport tomorrow when we checked in.

We put Silas to sleep in the smaller room, and Clementine in the king bed with pillows around her. We set the monitor up so we could see her, and continued chatting with my parents downstairs. Eventually, Clementine woke up unhappy, and Brennan and I decided the best course of action was for one of us to sleep with Silas, and one of us to sleep with Clementine (vs both of us sleeping on the pull out couch downstairs).

Surprisingly, we all did end up getting a good night’s sleep! The next morning, we packed everything up and met 2 Ubers a few blocks from the hotel to take us to the airport. Silas talked about how he missed his “Texas house” a lot on this trip, and we were finally going back to Texas. We loaded up the uber and arrived at the airport with no issues. Can’t say the same about my parents…their uber sideswiped a guardrail on the way! But they did finally arrive and we started the check-in process. Again, we were told there was nothing they could do about our seats. I remember Brennan and I exchanging an exasperated look that translated into - it is what it is.

We were at the airport early enough to head to the priority lounge for coffee and breakfast. I also got Clementine to take a quick nap while we were there, but soon it was time to head to our gate. It was quite a walk to our gate - maybe a solid 10 minutes, with moving walkways - but we scanned our boarding passes and stepped onto the jetbridge (one of Silas’s favorite parts about flying - walking down the jetbridge).

As we were about to step onto the plane, Brennan asked - where is the diaper bag? We all looked around and I said - it’s on the purple carry on suitcase (that had extra clothes for the kids, extra diapers, extra formula)…also nowhere to be found.

At this point in time, a memory quickly flashes in my head of Brennan days before saying - “what would we do if we forgot formula for the flight home? Or what if we spilled it everywhere at the airport?” Well, “we wouldn’t be able to fly” was my first thought. And that came flooding back to me. We were about to board a 10.5 hour flight with no formula, no bottles, no diapers. Brennan sprinted back up the jetbridge to retrace our steps. My parents and I ended up boarding with the kids but had told him to text us if he couldn’t locate the bags, because me and the kids would have to deplane. About 10 minutes later he boards the plane WITH the bags - we had left them in the lounge! Crisis averted, we were homeward bound.

Brennan, Silas and I had 3 of the 4 middle section seats, with a lady on the aisle in our row. We initially put Silas between us, but realized it may be easier sitting beside each other to co-handle an 18lb baby the whole flight. We even laid her on our tray tables for part of the flight so she could sprawl out! This will be the last time she flies without her own seat, regardless of how old she is!!

Silas got to sit by the stranger and she was definitely less than thrilled. I can’t remember exactly what he was eating but the crumbs where absolutely everywhere - crackers I think. We were served lunch (our flight departed around 11am), and were juggling Clementine back and forth for the first couple hours. Soon, it was time for her nap and my mom graciously came to get her and held her for almost an hour and a half! They had much more room in premium economy - but premium economy wasn’t a budget splurge we were willing to make at an additional $800 per ticket ($2400 total).

When Clementine woke up, we played musical kids and sent Silas to sit with them. He watched a lot of paw patrol but even he got bored of tv, so it was a challenge to keep him from a tantrum. Thankfully, he had the right type of headphones that worked with the in-seat entertainment because the flight attendants ran out of headphones!

Not only that, but the WiFi was in and out the entire flight - and I had paid the $35 to have it the whole flight. I was getting texts here and there, but not enough service to watch or listen to anything. Brennan and I basically had nothing to do but hold Clementine and talk to each other for the entire flight - oh the horror!

About halfway into the flight, my cleaning lady sent me a text that she was on the way to our house. I had asked her to come that day so we got home to a clean house. I looked at Brennan in panic and asked, “did we turn off the alarm?!” He replied, “nope”. My heart started racing, texts started coming in about our alarm system going off. I tried logging into SimpliSafe but the WiFi wouldn’t work enough for me to login. I tried sending texts and instagram messages to neighbors - trying to make sure they knew the housekeeper was supposed to be there and to go over there if the cops were called.

About 30 minutes passed with no notifications, then all of a sudden, my phone was flooded from several people. “Cops are at the Martin’s”, “what’s the alarm code”, “Martin’s are flying back from Europe” and finally, “I’m leaving, but will come back next week” from the cleaning lady. The alarm went off, cops were called, and she unfortunately left in embarrassment. Well WE were embarrassed too, to say the least! I profusely apologized to her and hoped she truly would come back the next week (she did, and we tipped her generously for her trouble).

The hours passed and before we knew it, it was time for bedtime in Madrid time, but just another nap time in Dallas time. Both kids fell asleep pretty easily with 3 hours left in the flight, and neither one wanted to wake up once we landed - can’t blame them, it felt like the middle of the night to them even though it was only 3pm central time!

Clementine did finally wake up ready to party, but Silas was grumpy basically until we got home and he had his Chick-fil-A for the first time in a month!

Both kids went down very easily around 7pm, and both kids were up and ready to play at 2am. Brennan and I split duties, with him laying by Silas and me trying to get Clementine to go back to sleep. Silas never went back to sleep and Clementine was in and out until 5:50am, when I finally gave up. We started our day all very tired, but luckily nothing officially on the schedule until the next day. We were definitely worried about how long it would take the kids to adjust, but each day got better and better. Sunday they woke up at 4am, Monday 6am, Tuesday basically back to normal.

Now that we’ve been home for a couple weeks, I’ve had the time to reflect on our trip and I’ve realized truly how special the entire experience was. I’m the type of person who thrives in a challenging environment and this was right up my alley. Not only did it make me more resilient as a parent and spouse (there were challenges GALORE), but it also brought us so much closer as a family of four - going through a new adventure every day together. It was easy to be present every day because every day brought something new and energizing. There wasn’t a lot of down time to binge TV or doom scroll, our time was spent walking ancient streets and admiring landmarks that were built hundreds of years before the Americas were even discovered. We were consciously, deliberately building memories with our children and parents.

Everyone keeps asking if I’m relieved to be home, to sleep in my own bed. And yes — of course I am. The normalcy is good for the kids, good for all of us. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t ache a little for what we had every single day over there: the open road, the open mind, the open heart.

We live a full life here in DFW. Career, marriage, children, a home we love. Comfort is available to us, and it’s earned. But that’s exactly why we go. This trip — all of it, the chaos and the wonder and the jet-lagged toddler meltdowns — was, in part for me, a deliberate act of resistance. A refusal to let comfort cost us our awe.

So yes, it’s good to be home. But part of me is already a little homesick for a place I only just left — for the version of us that existed there, wide-eyed and unhurried, with nowhere to be but exactly where we were.