Travelling

Palm Beach March 27, 2010

We're back in Cambridge after over a week in Florida. We travelled down last Friday for my brother David's wedding in Miami. As she's been on a plane every month of her life except for the first one, Violet was a great plane companion and made lots of friends by smiling and being generally adorable. I love travelling and always dreamed of being able to travel with my daughter. However travelling with an infant is not exactly dreamy. Packing all of the stuff both of us would need for a week is a lot of work. Some of the packing is fun, like trying to decide which of Violet's fantastic outfits we should bring. But packing up all the bottles, the pump, the pump parts, enough baby food for the hotel, and strategizing about how many Cheerios we would need and what bag they should go in gets tiring....and heavy. It's a lot of stuff to keep track of.

To me, travelling is often about trying new things and venturing into the unknown. Both things that are more difficult for an infant who does much better on a set schedule. I tried to manage Violet's need to nap and eat on time with my need to go out and do things and visit with family and for the most part we did pretty well. Managing another (very dependent) person's schedule is even more demanding than managing all of their stuff, especially in a strange place where everything is new. But, we discovered that King beds are fun to roll around on, french fries are good, and hotel cribs are OK to sleep in too. It was definitely nice to be around our family and hang out in the beautiful March Florida weather.

My one real mistake was booking a returning flight that left Florida at 9pm and didn't arrive in Boston until midnight. I thought I would just be able to put V down like normal at 7pm and that she would just sleep the whole time. Well, our girl is wise enough now to know that getting in the car seat means we're going some place and does she like to go! She didn't want to sleep at all. Watching the TSA unpack all our bags and scan her milk for explosives and walking through the airport where there are KIDS is WAY too much fun! Luckily she was a trouper and even though she was totally exhausted and could barely hold her head up, she was still smiling as we boarded the plane. She even charmed the gate agent into giving us a whole row (last row, but still) and letting us take the car seat on board. She did sleep the whole way back on the plane, as did I, however neither one of us slept very well. V woke up just as we started to descend and I figured I'd better nurse her for her ears. By the time we got off the plane from the last row V was awake but pretty limp, hanging on for dear life in the Ergo carrier. All that extra milk didn't sit well and right as I saw our 60lb bag coming out on the carousel, it all came right back up. A lot of it. I didn't really know what to do - we were both totally soaked, but I decided that changing all of our clothes was more than I could handle right then. I just had to do what I could with the towels and blankets that I had and hope that there wasn't a long cab line as it was only 30 degrees in Boston. I was so focused on getting home that I didn't even notice the cold on my feet in soaked flip flops. By the time we rolled onto Maple Ave, I was REALLY in need of a shower as the cab driver kept trying to cover up his ridiculously wretched flatulence with cheap powerful cologne. Didn't work buddy.

I didn't really forget to bring anything that I needed down to Florida and I managed to drag all 60lbs of our stuff back to Boston, but somehow between the cab and my apartment, I managed to lose my wallet. I know I had it in the cab as I paid the guy (and tipped him despite the flatulence), but now that all the bags have been unpacked and stuff put away, it's still missing. Maybe it will turn up when the Boston Police's Hackney Lost and Found opens tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath.

Violet was a wreck today. After finally getting in her bed at around 1am, she only slept until around 8am this morning. She has big dark circles under her eyes. She wouldn't nap at 10am either. We were supposed to go to brunch at 11am and it was as I was packing up for another outing that I realized my wallet was missing. Instead of just sitting down and crying right along with Violet who wouldn't stop, I strapped her right back in her seat and took her out anyway. It turned out to be the right thing to do. V stopped crying and started smiling and playing when she saw her friends and my dear friends listened to my wallet sob story and gave me some cash. We came home and took a good 2 hour nap and the she crashed for the night at 6pm. So long story, but the journey goes on!