The Vacation that Wasn't

Have you ever gone on a road trip with a toddler? I hadn't. Not until a few weeks ago. I thought I was prepared. I brought lots of books, snacks, toys. I brought a fan for white noise at night. I brought her favourite stuffed lion (that thing is a life saver!), her blanket, interesting grown-up toys that she normally is not allowed to play with and are therefore inherently fascinating. That should have been enough, right?

Well it was, to a point. While we were driving I sat in the backseat next to her, and we entertained each other for hours on end. She really is the cutest thing. We read books and made faces and sang songs and tickled each other. Every hour or two we pulled in at a rest stop so she could run around and enjoy some fresh air. It went well; she hardly ever cried, and we even had a lot of fun.

What part I hadn't expected to be difficult was staying in hotels at night. All three of us (and often four - Rob's sister Nicki stayed in our room with us when we were with his family) in one room. We obviously weren't going to leave Isabella in a hotel room by herself, so even though the room was dark and she was in her crib with her lion, she could still see us, hear us move around. Which meant that getting her to sleep was very difficult. By midnight she ended up in bed with us, either lying on top of us or horizontally across the bed so Rob and I ended up struggling to stay on the bed.

With all three of us suffering from lack of sleep, tempers were short. Vacations are supposed to be relaxing, but this was definitely not. Please don't misunderstand me, our vacation was awesome and we had a lot of fun, but in no way was it relaxing. Completely exhausting and a little stressful, but worth it. I got to meet a lot of Rob's family for the first time (and they're all very nice people), go horseback riding bareback, see The Lion King, show off Isabella (one of my favourite things to do, and she cooperates so well!), see my Grandma for the first time in ten years, along with my parents, and drive through some very pretty country.




Still, it's nice to be back home. Home, where Isabella has her own room (and therefore often sleeps through the night). "There's no place like home...there's no place like home..."