My husband Aneil and I spent most of our dating relationship and marriage travelling to near and far destinations. Travelling was so much a part of who we are as individuals and as a couple. Then came our son AJ. How could one, little, majorly loved person affect so much change?
Aneil and I got married when both of us were in our 30’s so we were not the young 20 something-ish parents that some of our friends were. We were excited to become parents but needless to say, we were already pretty set in our ways. Our thoughts on having children were, “Oh, having children isn’t going to change us! We are enjoying our life together, enjoying our jobs, we are financially stable therefore can afford to travel, so we are going to make our little guy a travel bug like we are!” Wow. Who knew?
Our first family trip was to Nova Scotia when AJ was 10 months old. My first thought was, ok this is going to be a piece of cake! By this time, AJ and I had an established routine. He had two naps per day, a regular feeding schedule and slept through the night. All of this sounds perfect now that I’m writing it down but it was definitely not that piece of cake chocolate cake with vanilla cream filling I had envisioned.
We were fortunate enough to have the owners of the company Aneil was employed with loan us there beautiful home in Chester, Nova Scotia. They graciously furnished the home with a rental crib and some play things to keep AJ entertained with the thought that while we cooked in their exceptional state of the art kitchen, AJ could watch us and play in the exo-saucer, thus giving Aneil and I some Mommy and Daddy time to share some wine and create fabulous dinners after a day of sight-seeing.
Well, I’d say 1/3 of that worked out. Sight-seeing between nap times was somewhat ok, except when AJ became cranky due to delayed nap times, or when he became miserable because I didn’t bring the specific baby food that he wanted that particular day, or when he was livid that I didn’t rock him to sleep in his rocking chair like I did at home.
Oh yes, and that special dinner time that I had in my head? With me wearing a pretty sun-dress while Aneil and I drank wine and listened to some great music turned out not to be that promised piece of chocolate cake too. I would have to crawl around on the beautiful hardwood floor chasing AJ around since he didn’t like to be in the exo-saucer, while Aneil put together some sort of speedy meal because we had to reserve 2-3 hours in order to exhaust AJ before he fell asleep……reluctantly and with a huge fight I might add.
I remember when we got home I thought I would never ever attempt a trip like that again. What I have come to realize since then is that I put unrealistic expectations on myself and my child. I was praised for having a child who worked so well with routine, who was able to have Mommy and Daddy time because my little guy went to sleep at 8:30 and slept through the night so I thought that going away with him would be easy. What I didn’t realize was sometimes routines need to be broken and it’s how your child and you deal with the change that is important.
AJ has just had his second birthday and we have done some local overnight trips with AJ and to be honest, it suddenly became that piece of chocolate cake with the vanilla filling that I had wanted so badly. Aneil and I have started talking about a big family trip when AJ is potty trained and fully vaccinated and this time around I will enjoy not having any expectations, just time with my wonderful son and my husband!
Printer-friendly version