What a week we had! We made it back last night after a straight through drive (truly--we only stopped for gas and to pee!) from Montreal to New York City. A somewhat tiring 6 1/2 hours in the mostly whipping rain, but man, it felt good to be home. I got slightly sick in Montreal either from a bad mussel or just a bug going around and so the last two days of the trip weren't my best. Nacho stepped up and really took care of things and that helped a ton, but I just didn't feel like doing much at all. We stayed put in the hotel both nights and I was glad it was the nicest one of our tour. Definitely worth it to have the suite which gave us extra room to let Elisa run around and almost hid her crib from view. She went to bed pretty well, though there were some nights of constant mutterings and calls for mas leche. I could really see an improvement since our last hotel trips to DC and Montauk in the spring. She gets that we are all going to bed, and even though it meant lights out for us too (usually by 9:30 p.m.), we all got plenty of sleep. Most days, she wasn't awake until 7:30 a.m. and by Friday it was almost 8:45 a.m.!
In general, I think we had our best days early in the week. The novelty of the trip was still fun and Elisa was managing to sleep in the car or stroller for her naps without too much fighting. By Day 3 and 4, the "crankies" started to take over and within minutes of waking up, she was fighting everything. Didn't want to get dressed to go get breakfast, didn't want to ride in the stroller or walk, didn't want to get back in the car. And as my enthusiasm for traveling started to slip, it was easy to become disenchanted with the whole thing. Of course, Nacho and I both love to travel and want that to be a part of our lives as a family. But after a few days of near constant meltdowns with Elisa, we were eyeing one another and wondering how people do this. Do people with kids do this? I know we like to take advantage of the time we have together now that I'm not working, even if the money isn't always abundant. It's definitely possible to do things on a budget wherever you go. And I tried to plan our route and our hotel stays with the most care, so that everything else was kind of fluid and adjustable. And for the most part, this worked well. But still, it's a lot of effort. I wish Elisa could appreciate that a bit more, but for now I'll just have to accept that she did the best she could. And that was good enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment