We found a new breakfast place this morning that was excellent. Normally we’d drink instant coffee and have breakfast at the Airbnb, but with just a couple mornings left it feels silly to stock up on supplies. So we walked two blocks and had our good coffee and filling breakfast sandwiches.

We came back, showered, and awaited the arrival of Papa Jeff. He came over and chose some of Millie’s many pieces of artwork to take home. I can’t wait to not be carrying around loose leaf sheets of paper that make up the “books” she has written and illustrated.

We finally left and walked towards the artisan market. We have barely bought any souvenirs on our trip and we love so many of the crafts from Oaxaca. Since this is our last stop and we won’t need to carry things around the world with us, we decided this is the time to become souvenir people. On our list were pillow cases, a new dress or skirt for me, and maybe some glassware.

The 20 minute walk there was very hot and Millie was very whiny, partly from the heat and partly because she didn’t feel good (unsure if this was real or just whining). When we arrived, the whining continued, even after she picked out and got a new dress. We decided to call it and head home to the AC to watch her Sunday movie that she didn’t get to see yesterday.

Millie, Nick, & Jeff watched Coco (felt right for Oaxaca) while I lay on the bed and listened to the audiobook of Famesick. After the movie we played some card games but Millie’s whiny behavior continued. She didn’t want to play the games we were playing, and when we played without her she caused a bit of a scene. What was that I wrote yesterday about her maturity and amazing behavior? Turns out she is still a 5 year old.

Jeff had promised her ice cream. This is a loophole in the Ice Cream Friday rule: grandparents can provide ice cream outside of the sanctioned day. She didn’t really deserve it but once he mentioned it we couldn’t take it away. We walked over to the ice cream shop, whines the whole way.

From here we took a taxi up to the Reforma neighborhood to meet some of Jeff’s friends at an indoor kids play place. She ran off and had fun on all the bouncy and climbing things.

The highlight was this trampoline where they harnessed her in and then yeeted her up to the ceiling. I thought she’d be terrified by it but she loved it.

Unfortunately the bad mood returned towards the end, and we all left in our classic family low point dynamic: Nick annoyed by a day of whining, Millie upset that he is annoyed with her, me trying to hold it all together and feeling resentful of my emotional family. We should probably go to family therapy (80% joking).

We took a taxi to a restaurant back in our neighborhood. When we walked in we saw Janet, Eric’s sister. It is always fun to see a familiar face so far from home, and I made a plan to go and see their family’s shop tomorrow.

We had a good but somewhat quick dinner, eager to get home, showered, and to bed. We needed a reset for tomorrow… our last day! Over the last week I’ve considered if we should do anything special to commemorate it, like book a fancy dinner. But it doesn’t feel right. One of the side effects of a year like this is that when you make every day special, it makes it very difficult to plan anything extra special. So it will be a day like any other on this trip—special in its own unpredictable way—and then suddenly, we’ll be done.