Traveling With Baby

It seems we always have an idea of what our life is going to look like at a certain period–and how often that idea blows up in our face and we realize that reality is just reality. As you’ve seen from my walks with my baby column, we had a family trip to San Francisco. Hubby had a design conference to attend and we thought why not make a trip of it. The idea I had was that we would be the family that flew beautifully with a baby, had no trouble adjusting and that along with long naps in the carriage, I would get to explore a city I had never visited but always been curious about. We would be the flexible world traveling family that does it all without a cinch. Here’s reality: baby got a cold right before our trip so it made him abnormally fussy. Baby is ten months old so all he wanted to do during the flight was climb stuff. Once we actually made it to San Fran, we were technically hours over his normal bedtime and his poor little body didn’t know what to make of that so he proceeded to wake up every two hours throughout the night. Since he is used to a nap two times a day, naps took priority to sight seeing so I really didn’t see very much of this city that I was so curious about.

Lack of sleep and 24 hour mommy duty landed me in the mode of no makeup and no shaving–and suddenly I felt like I did when he was just born! Now don’t get me wrong, Dad did the best he could in between the conference and meetings and our family time was super sweet–who can beat seafood by the wharf and first time trolley rides? But I admit, I longed for the comfort of home. So its not that I was disappointed by the trip, in fact, I’m glad we did it. We really bonded as a family unit. But I suppose the message is that traveling with a baby (particularly with a time change) is not a fantasy of rosey family times. It is reality: some tears (babies and mine), some tiredness, a lot of time in a hotel room, as well as the reinforcement of commitment as a family- we stick together, we get through the tough moments, and of course, we cherish the moments that are sunny, full of laughter, and when we make it work as a team.