Beach baby

I just got back to work on Tuesday after a much anticipated 11 days off. This is the most amount of vacation time I’ve taken since my wedding and honeymoon almost four years ago. We headed out for a long week in Virginia at Matt’s parents house on the bay. I should be relaxed, rejuvenated, recharged…ha ha ha!

This vacation was different than past ones --this time we had Joe. I had great plans too. I imagined us playing on the beach, excited to explore, long walks with Joe’s bike, maybe a day visit to Colonial Williamsburg, a little Main Street shopping, a very tired baby crashing from exhaustion at the end of each day, and Matt and I lounging in the hot tub each night with some fun cocktails.

For 6 six nights Joe did not sleep. Sure he closed his eyes, he even snored a bit...but, without fail, just as I would close the door to his room, he would jump up eager to join the party that was getting ready to start without him. He really perfected the art of the temper tantrum while we were away too. I’m talking knock-down, drag out, kicking, screaming, biting, hitting, throwing, coughing, unending tears temper tantrums.

I spent my mornings waking up with him at 6am, because for some reason he was confused about the whole sleeping in on vacation thing--instead, he decided to wake up an hour and a half earlier each morning. These were not the mornings I had envisioned sitting on the screened in porch, enjoying my coffee, easing into my day. The second day, Joe treated me to a poo that I still don’t think I could ever accurately describe the sound of. Matt was out checking the crab pots, so I am the only witness to this…I can only say that I wish I could’ve recorded it, because none of you will believe the sound that came from my kid. It was like a fog horn went off in his diaper. It required placing him in quarantine in a large cardboard box, scrubbing a floor and finally hosing him off in the shower. I blame the carton of blackberries he ate from the produce stand the day before.

In addition to all of this, we had the crazy dog with us. Yes, Harley was in rare form last week. There was the chewed up rug (which I had to make a little shopping trip to replace), the shredded drapes (which, luckily were able to be identically matched on Ebay), the 12am bath because he rolled in poo in the crate on the trip there, etc, etc, etc (long story short, upon our return I relented and took him to the vet for the puppy valium that I had been in denial he needed for the past 7 years).

At one point on our "vacation" Matt actually asked if I wanted to go home early. And for some reason (one that I can't explain) when he uttered those words, I nearly cried. To me, it was as if "going home" was admitting failure to this whole parenting business. I mean, we have a baby now, so we are supposed to enjoy vacationing together, enjoy making scrapbook worthy memories together...so why was this so friggin difficult?

By mid-week, I came to the realization that perhaps this wasn’t as stressful as I was making it out to be. Perhaps, my expectations were a little to unrealistic. And perhaps, I was being a little too hard on myself. After all, this was our first time vacationing alone with a baby. Before now, all we had ever known of vacation were carefree days of happy hours, afternoon naps, and selfishly doing whatever, whenever we wanted. Maybe it was me that needed to change my perspective.

And I did. As nervous as I was to take Joe on the boat, I soon discovered, this might be the key to finding that vacationy feeling I was so looking for. The first venture out, we found a small beach. It was pretty cool watching Matt and Joe play in the sand, seashell hunt, and catch minnows. I kind of knew this was one of those mental snapshots I would hold close in my heart forever and always. Seeing Joe’s fearlessness toward the water and its surroundings was both scary and inspiring.

Over the next couple of days, I realized that vacations as I had known them wouldn’t ever be the same, but just because they were different didn’t mean they couldn’t be fun. Matt and I did take Joe on those long bike rides. We saw some wild turkeys. We watched fireworks. We ate ice cream. We caught salamanders. We picked crabs. We applied and applied and applied sunblock. We sprayed bug spray. We made big breakfasts. We shopped. We went to dinner. We had lots of M&M’s. We danced to music. We bird-watched. We collected leaves. We collected shells. We played.

It was nice to embrace this new kind of vacation because it actually offered new experiences…the trip that I had planned in my head for so long didn’t offer up nearly as much. I wish I could say that the remainder of our stay was smooth sailing. The truth is, it was an up and down roller coaster of 5 minutes on, 5 minutes off relaxation. When we got home we even joked that we were in need of a vacation from our vacation.

On Tuesday morning, after I dropped Joe off at daycare, I made my regular stop for coffee, and relished the solace of sitting in my office reading the morning news on CNN.com. Then I downloaded the pictures from the week and started browsing through them. I smiled.

As stressful as our trip seemed at times, our pictures tell a different story. Twenty years from now, I know that when I look back at these photos, I won’t see the sleepless nights, tantrum throwing, or missed expectations. I will see us with our baby boy playing on the beach for the first time. I will remember the awe of watching him play in the waves, “drive” a boat, catch a crab, and dance.

Would we do it again, you ask? You know, we probably would next week if someone offered (although Harley will be enjoying our next vacation from a nice doggy kennel). Ok, another cheesy little mommy life lesson: Because aside from the tantrums and 3 hour night sleeps, we did enjoy ourselves…as a family…together.