Ten on Tuesday: Travel Edition

Inspired by our recent trips to both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

1. Baby girl hates sand. Apparently grass leg (see month 9 photo on right) translates into sand leg as well. I think it's a texture thing. I think it freaks her out that it sticks to her. This isn't so great when you want to sit in the sand and build sand castles together, but it ended up working out in our favor when we discovered that we could just plop her on a beach towel and that served as a make-shift playpen since she wouldn't move off the towel onto the sand. Win.

2. Baby girl love love LOVES the sea breeze, the birds, the ocean, the sound of the waves, the taste of sea shells . . . in short, everything about the beach except the sand.

3. Things I recommend:
--getting a suite hotel room so that you can put the kiddo to bed and still stay up and visit, watch TV, etc.
--bringing the stroller to the airport. Even if you end up holding your kiddo most of the time, the stroller can hold three bags plus a giant car seat, much more than any mere mortal.
--early morning flights. You are well rested. Your kiddo is well rested. Chances of anyone melting down, young or old, are much smaller.
--thick skin. You'll get eye rolls and looks of exasperation when people see that they are seated next to a baby. Brush them haters off. 

4. Things I don't recommend:
--late flights. You'll regret it. If your kid is anything like mine, they are too social and into all the people to chill the eff out and sleep. Until they finally reach their breaking point and scream bloody freaking murder while the entire plane tries to give you sympathetic smiles but really are thinking in their heads, "What the hell is wrong with that child? Why can't her parents calm her down? Why aren't they doing anything about it? Why is she still awake at this hour? Why did they book a late flight, those IDIOTS!" (I may be projecting on that last part.)
--planning back-to-back cross-country trips during your first trimester. Traveling is tiring. Traveling with a baby is exhausting. Traveling with a baby when all you want to do is sleep and puke is no bueno.

5. Going on a pure-fun family vacation (a la our trip to Florida) is waaaay different than going somewhere for a purpose (a la our trip to California). Florida was delightful. Relaxing. Soul-cleansing. We had no where to be at any given time. Our hardest decisions were something along the lines of where to eat? Pool or beach? You get the idea. California was stressful. We had to meet with people for meals. We had to be certain places at certain times, and of course none of those events were planned with a baby's nap schedule in mind. Poor baby girl got only one nap a day the entire trip, at some point in the afternoon, whenever we managed to make it back to the hotel. She also stayed up way late every night. She is a total trooper and still managed to charm the pants off everyone, but I felt guilty the whole time. The second trip just felt like one big fat chore.

6. No matter how much I rationally reminded myself, again and again, that TH was IN the wedding, that these were HIS friends, that he needed to go be social and participate in all of the activities and could not possibly be expected to leave anything early, by the last evening, when I was leaving the wedding reception early, by myself, once again, to get baby girl home and in bed finally, I still resented it. I felt like a nanny he had brought along so that he could go out and party with his friends every night, unhindered by his parental responsibilities. That resentment, coupled with a first-trimester exhaustion and nausea, coupled with a melting-down child on the flight back, did not end well for us.

7. Did I mention my exhaustion? Our flight landed at 11:30 p.m. last night. We finally made it home by 1 a.m. I was up at 6 for work. I am worthless today. Worthless. I've downloaded the file I'm supposed to be working on, but it is 1:07 in the afternoon and it's still just sitting on my desktop because I can't garner my thoughts well enough to put together coherent sentences. Exhibit A: I kept thinking, I should do a trip recap like a ten on Tuesday. Darn, too bad it's not Tuesday. I honestly thought this exact thing two or three times before realizing that it was, in fact, Tuesday. Exhibit B: I went to pee for the third time at work this morning (aw, frequent urination, how I've missed thee!) (<--sarcasm font), at which point I realized I had put on my pants backwards. Funny #1: putting on your pants backwards. Funny #2-#4: not realizing your pants are on backwards until the THIRD time you go to the bathroom.

8. My first-trimester symptoms, combined with my exhaustion from all the travel and my irritation with how the California trip was going down, did not bode well for my tolerance levels with my mother-in-law. Everything out of her mouth seemed trite, whiny, and self-indulgent. I'm really, really hoping there was still some veil of politeness on my exterior that hid my interior dirty looks and eye-rolling.

9. I'm not around other babies a lot. I'm around my baby a lot. So I think all babies are like my baby. Talkative. Outgoing. Energetic. Expressive. Charming. The bride and groom have a 15-month-old daughter, who, literally, just sat and stared all weekend. I swear I never once saw her smile. Never heard her vocalize anything. Bored look? Impassive staring. Excited look? Impassive staring. They could plop her and prop her in all manner of positions (she was wheeled up the aisle in a red flyer wagon, sitting amidst a nest of tulle and flowers, and she literally just sat and stared, whereas my child would be eating the tulle, pointing to all the people, and trying to dive out of the wagon to pet the koi in the pond. While I was a little envious that their girl fell asleep at the reception, never once uttering a peep, while my baby girl sort of morphed into a maniac who laughed and shouted "Buh! Buh!" and signed more whenever she saw bubbles floating around, I was also reminded how absolutely amazing my child is. Damn I love her.

10. Ultimately, I came out of these experiences, as I have all others, more in love than ever with my girl. Through flights and car rides and screwed up schedules and screwed up eating and being kept up late and woken up early, she was a total rock star. She was funny and sweet and charming and made every second of both trips enjoyable. (Okay, maybe not those ten minutes she lost her freaking mind on the flight last night. That wasn't enjoyable. But other than that.) She is a trooper, and I can't imagine any cooler kid than she is. I know I'm not supposed to compare, but Dos is going to have one helluva example set for him/her!