Vacation?

Vacation is all about rest and relaxation, right? Well, yes, if you are single, or even a couple (provided the descriptor is 'happy'), but throw a kid in the mix and relaxing isn't really the word anymore. It can be fun, or interesting, but with a kid, regardless of setting, there is no downtime. Especially if your special little kidlet loathes napping. And toting the sheer volume of crap involved with kid care is a passel of work in and of itself. I freely admit to being an overpacker, but not to any level of insanity, just, you know, a few too many outfits for the circumstances. Not 3 suitcases worth or anything. I say this with mild defensiveness considering our car was literally packed to the ceiling with baby crap. In the end, we used nearly all of it, so I felt somewhat vindicated. I also found myself thinking, you know, maybe a minivan isn't such a bad idea...

A little vacation compare and contrast for those of you living the kid free life -

With Baby - The 4-hour drive required a food stop, a diaper stop, a run around in circles stop, and a juice stop along the way.

Before Baby - 4 -hour drive is done in 3 hours and you pee in a cup to get to the beach faster.

With Baby - pack the car with 47 cubic tons of baby crap

Before Baby - put underware, swimsuit, and a credit card in a backpack and call it overpacking.

With Baby - stay at a 2 star motel 'suite' with a fridge for the milk, a microwave for the baby food, and 2 rooms so you have somewhere to hide when the baby goes to bed at 7pm (at least until you go to bed at 8pm).

Before Baby - stay at a 5 star hotel suite with a jacuzzi tub and a king size bed covered in 1000 treadcount linens that you never use cause you are out at the swim up bar until 2am, before swinging over to the all night on grounds club to do jello shots, and end up sleeping on the beach.

With Baby - spend 45 minutes setting up all the beach canopies, blankies, towels and toys, only to bundle them all back up 30 minutes later when you realized how badly you mis-timed the need for napping as indicated by the ear-bleeding screaming so shrill it brought the lifeguard over to your encampment just to 'check in'.

Without Baby - arrive at the beach at 6am with towel and book, lie down, nap, roll over, drink a fruity drink, nap, roll over again, read, nap, and leave at 6pm.

Ah, how times have changed.

In spite of the last night being chockfull of teething misery, overall, for baby's first vacation, I declare the trip a success. Every last bit of it was worth it for this: