Baby, Don’t Go
I’ve been neglecting you, dear readers. I have five draft posts filling up my writing queue, each at a different stage of incompletion. But the drafting is slow and will probably remain so for a while longer. Will you forgive me if I say it’s been a busy month? Deadlines have been popping up like whac-a-moles at work, a freelance project added late nights and early mornings to already full days, and then there’s the baby. I found adjusting to the New Normal that G represents relatively easy. I could handle waking in the middle of the night. Being at his beck and call at any moment never drove me crazy. (Although perhaps it would if I spent all day every day with him—but I don’t.) No, the hard part is that “New Normal” isn’t a single thing or even a set of things to grow accustomed to; rather, it’s a processional, a succession of one New Normal after another. Today’s normal? Teeth. As in two sharp incisors jutting like Moai from G’s lower jaw and two more pushing down from his uppers. These newest teeth seem to be more painful than the first two: He cries and complains like he was getting paid for it. Tomorrow’s normal: Travel. Early next month we’re taking a 4-day road trip to Mississippi for a wedding and then Arkansas for the family. But seeing as how we’re still reluctant to take G even the 15 miles it takes to get to Coralville, it’s going to take some fast fear-conquering to get us on the road. So on that note, a question: What advice do you have for road tripping with an 8/6-month-old?
Comments
February 23, 2011
Shaun / Feb 23, 11:31 AM
Nothing brilliant here, but when we had to make the trek to Texas from Tennessee at 7 months, we took our sweet time about it and did everything we could to drive when S was asleep. We left early in the morning, stopped for breakfast when she woke up, drove some more, stopped for lunch, drove like crazy during post lunch nap, and because we had split a 15-hour drive into two days, we could stop by early evening to eat dinner and crash in a hotel.
One of us usually rode in the backseat to keep her company reading books, having snacks and bottles, and the like. The drive ended up being fairly manageable. It was the stay in the hotel room that turned out to be miserable. Something about the long day and being in the same room with us threw all natural sleep patterns out the window.
Anyways, maybe that helps. Good luck with the trip.
greg / Feb 23, 01:50 PM
Taking it slow sounds exceedingly wise. Unfortunately, this trip is more of the won’t-stop-til-Wally-World variety. Given of the aforementioned deadlines, my bosses moved a couple of mountains to let me take the time off.
Besides making sure we’re all packed and ready and finding a place to board the dog, our biggest obstacle is probably leaving early. We’re not the zippiest family in the morning, so it’ll take some effort to get out the door, but if we can manage it, things will definitely be much better than if we leave too late.
Fingers crossed the hotel won’t be too much of a problem for G. Since he still sleeps in a bassinet in our bedroom, he’s used to being near us at night. But we’ve never had him out and about all night before….
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