Sweet Yet Sour

We have returned relatively unscathed from our trip to Keystone.  But as soon as we all got home, everyone took a nap…

We were invited up for the weekend by Nate and Laura with the purpose of Nate and Mike going to the Vail Beer Festival together on Saturday.  Meanwhile, Laura, Anna and I were going to have a relaxing time hanging around Keystone. Laura is so kind, she made it sound like Anna was such a good girl. It’s a bit of a stretch of the truth…

Traveling with an infant is never exactly what you expect and Anna certainly played her part in this follie.  Here are some of the items that must be taken when traveling with an infant: Playpen and all associated bedtime items, including play pen sheet, baby quilt, bear, silkie, and bedtime books; breastfeeding pillow, travel highchair, rice cereal, oatmeal, formula (for mixing with the cereal), several jars of baby food, bowls, spoons, bibs, washcloths, finger foods, including sweet potato puffs, organic cheerios, and saltines, along with several toys, enough diapers to get through three days, wipes, butt paste, infant Motrin, sippy cup, and at least five outfits.  We also took our cooler with Anna’s yogurt, the fruit that she is eating, and the things we needed for breakfast Saturday and Sunday.  Oh, and then Mike and I took some clothes and underwear…

With the car packed to a hilt we headed off on Friday with the hope that Anna would sleep in the car.  She slept for 1/2 an hour of the almost 2 hour trip.  When we arrived we let Anna play for a little and then I put her down for a nap.  Instead, Anna screamed/cried for an hour while Mike and I prayed that no one was in the condo next door.  After an hour we gave up, and headed out for an early dinner.

This is what my kid looks like when she hasn’t napped and is trying saltines (without salt on the top) for the first time:

No nap!

She’s still cute, but looks a little sleepy.

The first night in the playpen Anna discovered that mom and dad were in the same room and cried when she saw us, cried when we turned over and cried when we breathed heavily.  I’m sure she figured if we were in the room we should be playing with her and not sleeping. Mike and I spent much of the night trying not to make a sound. She had a good nap on Saturday morning, followed by no nap on Saturday afternoon, an early bedtime followed by 3 hours of crying on Saturday night.

Fortunately, Nate and Laura sleep through almost anything and missed most of the crying.

On Saturday Mike and Nate had a great time at the beer festival and Nate won a silver medal for one of his beers.  As expected though, they drank a lot.  Mike and Nate and both nice drunks though.  Nate just talks loudly and then passes out.  Mike told me he loved me a lot more than he normally does and that’s really fine with me.  I have some incriminating pictures of drunk Mike and Nate, but I’ll resist posting them on the web. I have them backed up in case I need to black mail either of them later.

I’m glad Nate was drunk on Saturday night,  (he would have probably slept through a snow plow going through the room) since Anna cried for so long. I think Laura used the time to catch up on her reading.

Mike did take a picture of me in my new glasses on Friday night that looks pretty good.  As an explanation, I have not worn glasses since 8th grade when I was allowed to get contacts, until now.  A few months ago my eye doctor and I determined that the hormones from nursing Anna were causing my eyes to be so dry that I can no longer wear my contacts.  At least if I have to wear glasses, I can try to look hip:

New glasses

All in all, this trip was a good learning experience as a pre-cursor to our trip to Dallas in February.  I think mostly we learned that our days of sleep deprivation are not entirely over, but that we can all nap when we get home.