"Vacation"

Wow, vacation was hard.

I know part of the reason (what am I talking about? MOST of the reason) things have gone so well for Phillip and me in the Taking Care Of A New Baby department is a large and experienced support network. My little sister practically lived at our house the first couple weeks Jackson was home, holding him while I took showers and napped and scrounged for something to eat. Many of our good friends have babies, and they understand having to go home early or needing a place to put the baby down. Phillip's mom comes over once a week to watch Jack so I can get some work done or, you know, go to the mall and treat myself to a latte and a pair of new shoes. My mom and dad are now only an hour's drive away instead of, oh, four frillion hours, and we see them all the time. I'm going out for drinks with my first moms group this weekend and starting up my second group in October. We have our longtime friends and our church community and our families and did I tell you my sister moved out of her six-blocks-away apartment into a one-block-away apartment? It's just not that hard to find someone to watch the baby or at least go out with the baby.

Until the last two days when Phillip and I decided just the three of us should go on a little road trip. I booked a nice hotel (and a morning massage) and we figured we'd just hang out. Can't do much with a baby who naps three times a day, right? We loaded up some TV shows onto the laptop and brought a bag of books and magazines. We told ourselves we'd nap when the baby napped.

Except, the baby didn't take very long naps. He didn't go to bed on time. He woke up three or four times in the night. Last night he woke up at one and didn't go back to sleep until three. That's pretty bad for my generally mellow kid. (And vacation seems to have screwed us royally- right now he's into his second hour of screaming about his bedtime. Phillip is doing the pat on the head thing and I am sending fourteen dozen emails.)

Yeah, I'm still sort of obsessed with the sleep thing, but lack of sleep wasn't the hardest thing. It was just not knowing what to do. We had a really nice room and I'd pretty much packed Jack's entire bedroom, but we didn't have his playmat or his exersaucer (there goes my no plastic vow) or the bumbo or even an extra room where we could hang out while he napped. We were at a resort in the off season (hello cheapness!) but that meant it was a little too chilly to enjoy the resort amenities and besides that, we were slaves to the nap schedule. We wanted to be slaves to the nap schedule. We wanted to read and watch TV and read up on our websites and just, you know. DO NOTHING. But people! Doing nothing is really hard when you are doing nothing with a BABY.

For example, you should not let your baby watch four episodes of 'Big Love' back to back. Right? Right. Your baby cannot hang out in the middle of the bed while you are getting your massage and your husband is reading about Wesabe. Your baby is not going to play happily by himself until the reasonable hour of nine or ten because you happen to be on vacation and want to sleep in. In short, you must do all the things you normally do to take care of and entertain the baby, you just have to do them in a foreign place where you don't have access to your things or your house or your big fat wonderful support system. I don't know how many times over the last two days that I thought to myself: HOW DO PEOPLE DO THIS?

I am totally in love with my baby. I am way more in love with him than when I first saw him or first brought him home. This morning before we left I was feeding him (after he'd woken up criminally early, mind you) and he was doing this cute thing where he'd sip sip sip and then pull away, tip his head to get a better look at me and then BEAM. And after he'd give me five or ten seconds of the "You are the best mommy in the WORLD!" face, he'd sort of giggle to himself and latch right back on: sip sip sip. And then another beaming face. You don't care how early you have to wake up when your baby gives you that face.

But the waking up is still hard. Phillip and I were so out of it today. We snipped at each other all morning and discussed schedule strategy on the drive home. The minute we finally got the baby to nap in his crib, we passed out on the bed, totally forgetting everything we wanted to get done this afternoon. Right now we've been trying to get Jack to sleep for almost two hours- every time we lay him down he wakes up screaming. You just feel shot and the sad thing is, this is the way it goes. This is having a baby and for some people, two hours would be pretty damn good.

Comments

[Jennifer]

OK. You are scaring me. In about 10 hours we leave with Bronwyn for our weekend trip to NYC where we are staying in a hotel with her for two days.

I'm afraid.

Very afraid.

Ironically, it is 6:30 AM and the little angel is sleeping all the way through the night since 6 PM yesterday. Not one feeding. I gave her a pacifier at 4:30 AM and not one peep.

That's just great. A sleep break through and now we have to go to a hotel and screw her up COMPLETELY.

:)

[el-e-e]

So sorry you're having a rough time of it. And during vacation, too.... that's just all kinds of wrong. :( Maybe tomorrow will be better, yes? Yes.

[Arwen]

About a month ago when we went to a hotel for a few nights to celebrate our anniversary, we made the same discovery: getaways are not so much getaways when you take the baby with you. They're just normal life, impeded by the fact that you're away from all the things you use to cope with normal life.

This is why I have decided that the only kind of vacations we will take with a baby are the kind where you go to visit people, and they must be people who will be enamored with the baby and want to play with the baby so we can get a break. (And maybe drink an entire margarita before it gets warm.)

Sorry about the sleep thing. It just sucks sometimes, doesn't it?

[MamaJen]

It gets better! I promise! The hardest thing about your first child is that you lack perspective. Trust me - your baby will not always be waking up and making you physically exhausted! You will blink your eyes and your baby will be 10, almost as tall as you and studying algebra, like my oldest! Seriously, IMHO, 4 months old is the *worst* time as a parent - baby is no longer a sweet, sleepy newborn, he's interested in the world, but physically incapable of doing much about it. They require you 24/7 for *everything*, and it's absolutely exhausting. Wait just 2 more months, when baby is starting to sit up and maybe crawl - once your babe has more control over himself and can explore the world around him, it only gets easier, and more fun. I promise! :-)

[Shannon]

I remember vividly our first trip with M. and she was about the same age. We didn't think it would be so bad--went to a beautiful resort for a long weekend. It was a VERY rude awakening.

It does get better.

[karianne]

I kid you not, our first trip with the kids was when Ivy was almost 3. That was how freaking terrified I was of leaving my support group.

Needless to say, we skipped vacation this year and I was ecstatic!

Glad you're home.

[Angela]

Oy, I'm exhausted just reading this!! I hope it gets better for you and that you've gotten some rest since then.

[jen]

reading this post took me back to last summer in mt....not a vacation, more like 2 months of hell. and yes ella was 4-5 months old. whew. i'm sorry maggie. its the worst stage in my book.