vacation. the talkie version.

Natals, sporting her Red Sox backpack & fave binky, ready for our trip to Boston

Family Vacation.  Whew.  We are officially wiped out after our long weekend in Bean Town; we've agreed that the exhaustion was worth it, but I'm here to tell you that traveling in our little 3-person unit was way harder than we anticipated.  I'm going to do a separate post with all of the cute pictures of our trip, but this post is going to give you a bit more of the real deal on how we survived two nights in a hotel with our incredibly cranky toddler.

If anything, this trip made us realize that we need to keep throwing curveballs in Natalie's routine every now and then.  The kid is a creature of habit, and she soemtimes struggles to adapt to new environments.  This adventure proved a major challenge for her--and she was a major challenge for us. 

Ups from the trip:

* Our first night at our hotel, and the wonder on Natalie's face when she would press her face against the windows and gaze at the city lights

* Riding the T, where Natalie was completely content people-watching and snuggling up in my lap

* The Planetarium section of the Museum of Science

* Every minute we got to spend with the Gebbie family.  Their arrival seriously salvaged the trip for us, and spending time with them was about the only thing that made the budgie happy

* A leisurely drink with Tylea after the kids were asleep on Friday night

* Most of our time at the New England Aquarium

Downs from the trip:

* Natalie's refusal to nap

* The multiple screaming, hitting, throwing tantrums that we had to deal with in more public places than I can count

* That feeling of helplessness that Mike and I both had at a few different moments, when we just had no idea how to make our kid happy

The positive moments of the trip outweighed the negative ones, to be sure, but those hard episodes were HARD.  Perhaps some of the hardest parenting moments we've ever had. 

But we survived it.  There were high-fives all around when Natalie was finally tucked safely into her own bed last night.