Weekend away

It always sounds so easy. Let's just go some place for a few days, see a few sights, have some good food and come home. And when there are friends or family to visit on top of that, it's kind of a no brainer. Pre-baby, I was all about travel, especially given our flight benefits and the idea that any city was just a skip and a hop away. We could spend a weekend in Maine, jet to Aruba for two nights, and I flew to DC once just to have dinner with Nacho. But the reality of travel with a toddler is so much harder. There is still all the chaos and stress of packing and getting there and then there is the insanely stupid idea of standby with a kid. But sometimes, I forget all that and I get jazzed about where I'm going and we hit the ground with all kinds of energy and enthusiasm for the new place. In Chicago, this was definitely the case. Even the 30 minute wait at the rental car counter didn't deter me. I was up and ready for action. And the first day was good. We managed to give Elisa a cat nap in the car on the way into the city, and later, she slept a wink before we made it to dinner. Two cat naps is better than no nap, I quickly found out. The manager of Demera, the Ethiopian restaurant where we had dinner the first night, even complimented us on Elisa's great demeanor. I was feeling very satisfied with my mom-on-the-go skills.

By Day 2, we were off to hike around the city and take in Millennium Park with its whimsical sculptures, fountains and pavilion after a delicious brunch at E.Leaven bakery. Elisa was a little goosey at the restaurant, shouting "goodbye monkey!" to the gorilla photo on the wall as we pulled her out of there. But all in all, I felt good about the day. We jumped and danced around the Cloud Gate dome, listened to a lunchtime concert at the park and even splashed in the Crown Fountains awhile. It was all a lot of fun and Elisa was getting some exercise and we got to enjoy a cool part of downtown. A win-win. She even passed out in her stroller on the way to meet friends for lunch at a bar where they were showing the Spain v. Honduras game. I couldn't have asked for anything more. Elisa was really stepping up to the plate. The nap didn't last more than 40 minutes, but it was at least a bit of a recharge for our traveling girl. I try not to stress or fret about these things when we are out and about, but the reality is that at home, she has the luxury of multi-hour naps in the comfort of her quiet room. And she likes that. She really, really likes that because it's not easy to get her to sleep elsewhere. Just the fact that she passed out in the car and in the stroller is a sign of how incredibly tired the poor girl was. It was building up and I knew it, but when you are traveling there isn't much time to stop the world for her to get off. It just keeps on moving.

So I kept plowing ahead, taking her for a dip in Lake Michigan before going to dinner with friends at a beer garden. It should have helped that there were two other little girls--Ellie (5) and her sister Olivia (2.5)--joining us who were more than accommodating with their toys and snacks. But Elisa was starting to hit bottom and her constant crying and moody tantrums were really beginning to annoy me. It's hard to enjoy yourself when none of your tricks are working and your kid is being a complete and total drain on the evening. But that's where I was at. Of course it had to get worse before it got better, so there was a new low point before bedtime where Elisa basically scratched and clawed her way out of my arms, thrashing and screaming all the way. If I had been watching this unfold, I might have thought there were electric shocks involved. It was pretty awesome. But alas, she finally caved to the bottle and burp rag routine and hit the pack-n-play with nary a whimper. She was out fast.

The next morning at brunch should have been a breeze, but in fact, Elisa's sleep had been so segmented between outbursts of crying that it was a tired morning after all. I so wanted her to snap out of it and just transform into the sociable, happy girl I love, but it wasn't to be. I had to take her out of the restaurant once for her continued screaming fit. She kind of understands those time outs, but I find it hard to get her completely back to normal when that usually means sticking her back in a chair she doesn't want to sit in and trying to remove the distractions she was fixated on in the first place (in this case, my iced coffee). It's like a torturous loop that I don't know how to break sometimes, and I'm afraid there were moments this weekend that it broke me. She fell asleep on our way to visit Maggie, so I arrived with a somewhat more rested girl. But still as the day wore on, she was having a harder time letting go of her anger at a shared toy or having to do what I needed her to do. It wasn't until that evening when I put her to bed by 7:30 p.m. that I thought we might be back on track. Elisa didn't go down without a fight and she still whimpered a bit all night long, but she stayed down for 13 hours. It was definitely a much needed marathon of sleep. And as she has done before, she wanted to nap only 3 hours after waking for another 2 hours. The magic of sleep was beginning to take hold. I know that no toddler can go without appropriate amounts of rest and that Elisa held on as long as she could. But as this weekend trip proved once again, she is definitely not a kid that can thrive on activities. She needs a good balance of rest and fun in her little world and as the gatekeeper of that, I have to respect her needs. So each time I felt myself boiling over at her behavior, I just had to tell myself that this is all part of her age and we will get past it. But somehow, it feels so deceptive the way she can seem so happy and then turn on a dime and become the devil spawn. As Nacho put it, there is no in between with this girl. And I suppose that travel only heightens this issue, but oy, I'm ready to chill out at home.