After Alayna took her bus adventure a few weeks ago, I felt like I also needed to take a public transit trip with the kids one of these days (due to gas prices, Mateo loves buses and trains, and why not?). So, after Mateo woke up from a wonderful two-hour nap this afternoon, we had a snack, got ready and headed out to visit Mama at work, which is an hour and 20 minutes by light rail (the MAX) from our house.
You should have seen us. Because we needed to drive home with Mama later on, I was lugging the 10 lb baby car seat, along with the double stroller, the diaper bag, and of course two kids. I walked the normally 15 minute walk to the MAX, although it took me significantly longer than 15 min to push all of the stuff and the kiddos, but we got there in time to catch the train!
Although this is the northwest, and people are supposed to be so friendly, it took a bit of standing up for myself to get a sitting down seat for the three of us. People were not feeling very understanding of our situation, but eventually we got one sitting down seat for both max trains. (I just couldn't help myself from using the word understanding. LOL Maybe I'm a bit too tired because even Alayna didn't quite get why I found that funny!)
We negotiated a transfer between trains and headed out to Mama's work, where both kids were quite the hit!
After Alayna finished up, we had a fabulous dinner at a Guatamalan restaurant and ate a Guatamalan enchilada (very different - more like a tostada with beets and other yummy vegis), fried plantains and pupusas.
At the restaurant I started talking to our server, who was also the cook. She was covered in burn scars because some power lines had fallen on her eight years ago. She had a really intense story to tell. She told me that along with the burning, her husband had kicked her out of their house after she got out of the hospital and had eventually had to flee the country to be able to provide for her children, who are still in south america. As if that wasn't enough, she was caught up in an immigration raid last year at a local factory, where she also had gotten injured on the job and had not been able to get medical treatment. However, she avoided deportation because of the situation she left behind and is in the process of hopefully receiving amnesty and becoming a legal resident. It was such a sad story, but also such a testament to human resiliency. We were also able to give her information about a local free clinic that focuses on migrant workers that she hadn't heard of, so we felt like we were able to help a tiny bit.
All in all it was quite the trip and now we're all ready for bed. We're planning a relaxing weekend that will hopefully be free of any long trips on public transit or otherwise!
PS: I forgot to mention that Mateo made the whole trip wearing big boy underpants and did not have a single accident. We are so proud of him. We've been trying to be consisent about having him wear underwear at home and praising him a lot for keeping it dry and going in the potty. He's also been essentially potty-trained outside of the house for some time, too. Nights are another story, but that will come with time. People keep asking us how long he's been potty-trained and we always say, well, he isn't potty-trained yet but we're getting there. I thought about that today and realized that we really are getting there!
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