January 10, 2016

Dear Baby,

All week long I have been wanting to post about moving into 2016 with you and how incredible and special that was for me. I made it my resolution to write more often and to stop getting side tracked and missing the documentation process of your life. 

I always fuck up resolutions which is why I am still not going to the gym 5 days a week, still craving cigarettes (although also still not smoking them) and still not appreciating life the way I promised to last year. 

Quick though, Baby: don’t make resolutions. 

Anyways, since then we have come a long way. Literally. We packed up and we are currently on day 8 of our sunny Florida vacation. So far, it’s been great. It is a real treat to be able to walk outside without 400000 layers of clothing and fear that I am making you cold and unhappy and you will subsequently get sick and make me unhappy and our whole house will be unhappy which is bound to have lasting effect and make you an unhappy adult… did I take that too far??? The rabbit hole is deep with you. 

I was super anxious about travelling with you. In my mind, we forgot to pack the essentials (which we could not possibly find and get in Florida where they sell the exact same shit as at home), you screamed the whole way down and everything went to shit. 
In reality everything was totally fine and you reminded me yet again to trust in your ability to adapt and generally be a good sport about changes. 
The usually kind of bitchy flight attendants were all smiles for you, our nearby seat neighbours were all smiles for you and you returned the kindness with not being a total snake and only crying minimally during our descent- which, to be honest was a terrible one and left me and your dad almost crying ourselves. 
In addition to my fear of leaving stuff behind, I had a opposing fear of packing too much for you. Would you need an outfit per day? The answer is obviously no. It’s been 4 days and you could have very well been wearing the same thing for all of them/ just being in a diaper all day but the photo ops of you dressed in SAILOR TANK TOPS AND MATCHING BLOOMERS was well worth packing 2 giant bags and shlepping them with your stroller and accessories through the airport. 
I also was super scared of the sun. I spent about 5 full hours researching how to best protect your baby skin from sun exposure and the bevy of problems that were sure to plague you if you even so much as glimpsed at the sun. In the end I figured that keeping you fully covered head to toe in a thick cotton would be ideal. I packed your best cotton onesies, 100 cotton blankets, 800 muslin blankets, 4 separate pairs of baby uv protectant sunglasses and 6 million sun hats (ok, I’m exaggerating. A bit).
In the meantime, it’s been cloudy and rainy everyday. A vacation nightmare to most. A fucking dream come true for me.

So in the end, it turned out to be pretty easy to take you on vacation. 

Basically Baby, I feel bad about poo pooing all the times people were all like “travelling with a young baby is easy.” I genuinely thought they were all super stupid and had no fucking clue about how hard traveling with you would be. 
They were right and I was oh- so wrong. I am so happy we have stared early in taking you with us to see the world. 
Moral here is simple. Don’t let anything stop you from getting out there. The world is an amazing place and you should only ever be limited by your imagination. 

Whether it is to Florida or to Thailand, whether by plane, train or automobile or whether it’s a 9 pound baby or a 20 pound backpack, go on and get out there.

xo

Mom