Week 31: Our First Trip

We have finally taken our first trip with Erik!  We went to our annual CFO/Controller Conference in Park City, Utah.  I was super, super nervous about how all three of us would handle not only the plane ride, but also a time change and different sleeping arrangements.  After the trip, I can say that we did superb on 2 out of 3 areas and we survived the third.  Erik did great on the plane ride, sleeping through the majority of the trip and nursing/eating during the landing & take-off - it was such a relief as I really didn’t want to have “that crying baby” on our plane.  Erik also did great with the time change - his behavior and attitude stayed pretty much the same.  The sleeping wasn’t so great; Erik was in his pack-n-play in a big closet in our hotel room.  He would go to sleep with no problem, but would then wake up & cry every 2 hours.  I still nurse Erik at night and after multiple attempts to put Erik back to sleep, I ended up nursing Erik in order to get him back to sleep.  Shockingly, I didn’t feel any more tired than normal.  I must really be messed up!!

Kent & I are attendees at the conference, so we were very fortunate to have our baby-sitter, Karli, also at the conference (her dad works for AHS, too).  She was willing to forgo skiing on the 3 mornings of the conference so that she could watch Erik for us.  I opted out of skiing for the 2nd year (I couldn’t ski last year since I was pregnant); I spent my afternoons with Erik instead.  I will be honest and admit to taking a lot of naps!!     

From our brief time in Utah, it appears that we may have a lover of snow on our hands!  Erik was very curious about the snow and didn’t seem to mind sitting in a snow bank while Mom & Dad took numerous pictures of him. We took him to a tubing hill that had a little “snow park” for children under the age of 3.  They had a tiny tubing hill that we sent him down a few times – he didn’t laugh or cry during this, but rather just solemnly observed everything.  There was also a ride where Erik sat inside a tube and was then pulled in a circle.  He didn’t crack a smile the entire ride, but he did cry when it stopped and we took him out of the tube. 

Our Snow Baby

Our hotel room in Utah didn’t have a tub, so we gave Erik his nightly baths in the sink.  He barely fit in there, but he absolutely loved it!  He was able to see himself in the mirror which he thought was pretty cool.  He would scoot himself down in the sink until he could put one or both of his feet up on the counter and then lean back so that his neck rested on the edge of the sink.  It was too funny to watch him.  I put some pictures in the March 2012 album of Erik in the tub.

It doesn't look comfortable, but he loved it!

The bad news from this trip is that all 3 of us got sick again.  We had all just gotten better (or were on the mend) but the change in environment and the sleeplessness (Erik was waking up every 2 hours to eat! Ouch) got to us by week’s end.  Oh well, we are getting used to being more sick than well these days.