We slept in and it was raining so it seemed like a good day to go to the aquarium. Arlo ran from one tank to another yelling “mama, mama, look!” Coral and anemones and eels. The big tanks with the sharks and rays were shaped like a tunnel so you could walk under the swimming fish. The ocean is full of shapes and patterns and it was inspiring to see them together and see the grace of it all – the wing-like flapping of the rays, the eels and fish who move their tails side-to-side, the almost motionless gliding of the sharks.
Arlo insisted we buy a little fish play set so he could re-create the aquarium later at lunch, and again at the hotel, in the bath, nearly everywhere. I’ve learned that he learns this way, recreating his experiences in miniature so he can fully digest them.
After the aquarium we took the bus a short way to the beach in Barceloneta and played a bit in the surf and ate gummy worms. It was windy and not warm but beautiful, all the apartments near the beach colorful and closed around narrow streets with laundry strung out to dry and Catalonian flags hanging from the balconies. 
It would have been more beautiful if we weren’t starving and tired and challenged to find something that we both could eat. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant, a little ironic but totally fine with good atmosphere and a table perfect for aquarium play.
Bellies full, we took the bus up to the gothic quarter and wandered a bit, and I could see Arlo getting tired – spinning around a lot and coming a little unhinged. He gets overstimulated, and we had already seen a lot. It hit a head in the Boqueria, where he was running into people and not being very good with personal space. There was a butcher stall with skinned goat heads that fascinated him, he kept wanting to touch them and I couldn’t get him to stop or listen so I ended up picking him up and dragging him out of there. He fought me in the middle of La Rambla and there were people everywhere, and I thought, I could lose him, or he could dart into traffic, he’s so tired. My heart was coming out of my chest. Each intersection was so scary – he was angry I took him out of the market and wouldn’t let me hold his hand. I grabbed it anyway, at the wrist, and he yelled at me, “stopppp!” It was the same on the subway, getting on and off with this tired irrational being, I was on high alert. What if we got separated? I would lose my mind.
Eventually, we got back to the hotel, where he packed his backpack and told me he was leaving, he was going to live on the street without me. He played the whole scenario out in his mind – he would drink sea water, and kill his own fish for food. I told him I was sorry for dragging him away from the goat heads but it was my job to keep him safe, and he wasn’t being safe. This went on for awhile until I convinced him to stay and not live on his own, in the wild. We watched Finding Dory and rested.
I like to travel because I like to be overstimulated- it makes me feel alive to have everything be new to my senses. Maybe because real life is not stimulating enough- the days spent in a cubicle feel like days spent dead. Arlo is still young, new, still taking in so much as a matter of course. Travel is stressful on him, because he simply can’t take it all in. He doesn’t have the filters I have acquired. He spins in circles on the sidewalk and gets unreachable and melts down. This is good to know.
We’ll take it easy from now on – only one thing per day, if we need to. Just enough and no more. I’m used to pushing everything but now we’ll go at his pace.
Little Bug 