Monthly Musings: May 2026
ft. Bean's 3rd new country, a BLW discussion, and our usual dose of ramblings
Bonjour, friends — happy Sunday! I hope this post finds you chilled out and appropriately caffeinated. I’m dropping into your inbox on this beautiful sunny morning to share our Monthly Musings: May 2026 post with you! I had hopes and dreams of sharing it last weekend as normal, but I was on holiday in Nice with my little fam-bam and having too much fun ✨doing nothing✨ to sit down and write this post. Every morning started with buttery fresh pastries from the boulangerie on the corner, every afternoon saw us strolling the Promenade des Anglais, and every evening ended in us eating gooey French cheeses & drinking fancy French wines. It was delightful!
We spent a large part of our days lounging around the apartment with Bean, doing nothing but drinking coffee, working on crosswords, and soaking up the sun from our little balcony. It was exactly the opposite of our Italian trip, wherein we were largely go go go, and it was so nice! We’ll definitely be striding to have more of a chillaxing mindset for any of our future travels — it felt good for the soul.
Our musings for the month ahead are listed below, filled with all the usual ramblings. A little baby update, some travel talk, a recap on what I’ve been reading and watching, and a few additional titbits for good measure.
Enjoy!
monthly musings: may 2026
Baby update: we’ve officially hit the 7-month mark(!) and she is turning into the sweetest little girl right before our eyes! She gets more vocal with every passing day — including singing along to Roy Orbison’s She’s a Mystery to Me with me! —, loves dancing, is the smiliest baby I’ve ever seen, and thankfully still sleeps the whole night through. Our journey into the world of food is going okayyyy; she’s not big on purees, so we’ve started to lean into baby-led weaning a little and that’s going much better! Seeing her hold and gnaw away on large cuts of food — we’ve had the most success with kiwi, avocado, & steak! — is the cutest thing ever, so long may it continue. I’ve been using the Solid Starts First Foods Database for advice on how to prep food for babies, and it’s been so helpful — would definitely recommend if you’re in the same boat!
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Travel-wise, Bean was just as good this time as she was on her first trip! The flights to and fro went swimmingly — she basically fed/slept/played the whole way, except for when the Ryanair staff made obnoxiously loud and stupid announcements over the PA system😠— and, even though she basically stopped day-napping while we were gone, she was generally in great form! We definitely noticed a difference between this trip and the last; even though it was just 2-ish months ago, Bean is waaaay more interested in reaching for everything and is far more mobile, so we had to keep our eyes peeled. Very glad we ripped off the travel-with-baby bandaid early on — I’m sure it’s only going to get more involved as she ages!
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Related: France was Bean’s third new country! I’m pretty sure I didn’t hit three new countries until I was like 9- or 10-years old, so I’m very proud of us for getting her started early! Obviously every year won’t be like this, but I’m glad we’ve been able to put my maternity time off to good use. Ideally, I’d love to get out of the country one last time before I go back to work in November, but it’s been a good run regardless! To keep track of all the trips we take with baby, I’ve actually created a ‘travel with Bean’ tag to keep everything in one handy dandy place. I hope to populate the tag with many more guides in the future😊
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Friends! Passionate Baker Travels turned 14 at the end of last month!! It was the day before our flight to France and I was so ill-prepared that I didn’t get to share my usual birthday blog post here with you! I’m hoping to remedy this situation soon-ish with a triple chocolate muffin recipe I’ve been tinkering with on and off for literal years, but until then: omg the blog is 14 years old!! I’m so ridiculously grateful for this little nook on the internet and all you lovely people that show up to read and support it — thank you for being here❤️
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In case you missed it, two new travel guides hit the blog last month: The Bologna Diaries, Vol. 05 and A Quick Guide to Rimini, Italy! I have one more guide to share from that trip — covering all things San Marino(!) — and then I’ll be moving on to some French guides. I actually already have a Nice city guide up, read it here, but I’m thinking I’ll gut and update it with some fun new recommendations. We also did a quick daytrip to Antibes while we were away, so you can expect a sweet little post about that in the not-so-distant future, too!
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Okay, what are we reading? I spent the last month captivated by the magical world Alice Hoffman created in Magic Lessons, The Rules of Magic, and The Book of Magic. I read them completely out of order — note to self for future rereads: Magic Lessons → The Rules of Magic → Practical Magic → The Book of Magic — but the books stand alone enough that that didn’t really matter; I loved each and every one! Now that I’ve finished the series, I’m officially at a book reading loose end. What should I reach for next? To follow along with my reading in real-time on StoryGraph, click here.
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Have you watched anything great recently? Our movie viewing seemed to take a hit last month, but new-to-us highlights include: Rental Family, largely because it was filmed in Japan, The Naked Gun, which was just silly good fun, and Roofman, which we both thought was actually very good! To follow along with our movie watching in real-time on Letterboxd, click here. TV-wise, we finished Love Story, which I know everyone was obsessing over, but we thought it was kind of meh boring? Currently, we’re working our way through Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole and Margot’s Got Money Troubles, both of which are based on books I’ve read and I’m really enjoying!
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Recipes I’ve spied from around the web: the thought of this Cereal Milk Cookie Butter French Toast has straight up blown my mind! That’s just too much goodness in one title to even begin dissecting it, but my gut reaction is YUM. I’m also very intrigued by this Molehill Cake over on Kitchen Projects! I’m always harping on about how I’d love to bake/cook more traditional things, and this certainly appeals to the part of my heritage that is 1/8 Polish!
And there we have it, our Monthly Musings: May 2026 post! I hope you enjoyed reading, and let me know any thoughts or what have you using the comment box below — I love hearing from you! Chat again next month,
Hugs,
Vicki xo
related may posts
2025 // 2024 // 2023
2022 // 2021 // 2020
2019