The temperatures rose this weekend. On Sunday, the high was a balmy 44. So we loaded everyone up — all 6 of us! — and drove to Baltimore to meet our cousins and tour the National Aquarium.
It went remarkably well. The baby slept most of both ways in the car. Indeed, the 3-year-old may have screamed more than the baby did. Since Baltimore was digging out from Saturday’s massive snow storm, things weren’t too crowded. We ate at a restaurant that was mostly empty, so it was OK to bring the stroller, and there was no one to object when the 7-year-old turned his place mat into a paper airplane and launched it (it got some serious loft!). The kids had a good time with their cousins and, while I didn’t actually see many fish, as I was obsessed with making sure I knew where my kids were, I’m sure they were great. We made it back up to Pennsylvania by 5 p.m. Getting out of the house is nice. I’m still sick, and I think the baby may be too, and the temperatures are going back down to zero tonight, but at least that was a positive step.
Congrats on making it out! Yes, in many ways I think infants are more portable and happier travelers than toddlers/preschoolers.
@gwinne – yep. The 3-year-old was mad because she didn’t get two turns in a row to pick the video being shown on the DVD player. I tried to explain to her that she doesn’t know how good she has it that she gets to watch videos on car trips, instead of just staring out the window!
Wasn’t the break from the cold lovely! We stayed closer to home but did try to stay out of the house as much as possible. I finally took B ice skating on the last day of the downtown rink. It was good practice for trying to get to work today—the snow followed by warm followed by freeze led to some really treacherous sidewalks!
I also found babies way easier to travel with than toddlers (or three year olds—but nothing is easy with 3 year olds)
@Ana- did you ice skate to work? Because that would have been awesome 🙂
Our driveway is basically an ice rink right now. We did shovel and salt and all that yesterday, but still.
I clearly remember my friend remarking that she never realized how quiet babies were until she had a three year old AND a baby.
@OMDG – of course, what’s really fun is when they *both* start screaming.
this is why I’m not planning on having more kids. >2 kids screaming at once would drive me to the loony bin
I must be in the minority b/c I didn’t find 3 years old to be that bad…WAY, WAY better than 2!! My favourite age so far is age 4-5. Still have that little kid sweetness and cuddliness and haven’t really started to talk back yet…But, to be honest, all of the ages have their (good and bad!) moments.
@Rinna- agreed that they all have their ups and downs. I think my least favorite that I’ve experienced is 12-24 months. Mobile, but not yet old enough to be reasoned with.
Oh goodness, I never meant to suggest that I didn’t *like* three. Three is awesome. So much better than baby-land in my household. It’s just loud.
YES. I’m contemplating a long flight later this year with the kids by myself, but the thought of having a 15 month old with me gives me pause.
@Melissa – I’m sure the trip overall will be fun. But we did a flight to/from Germany (from NYC) when my oldest was 19 months and oh my. He was too big for their little baby baskets and too little to stay in his seat. He’d make noise every few minutes and at one point this old German man basically shook his fist at us.
Sounds like a good trip! It’s a shame you are not feeling great though. I hope that sickness goes away soon!
And the little guy is getting so big and cute!
And because we have only one 12 months old baby I don’t have anything to compare him to. But I definitely know that I need to clean A LOT more because he eats literally everything. My mom is voting for hiring an outside cleaning help. My husband is voting for getting rid of stuff because it will make things a lot easier to clean. I vote for sleep… Sleep wins.
@Yana – thanks! He is getting big. And soon will be crawling around and doing gross things like licking his stroller tires (I found my oldest son doing that once at about 8 months — guess he was a more mobile crawler than I’d thought!)
Congrats on the successful outing! But I hope you get well soon, being sick in the cold is the pits.
Yana, sleep totally wins.
And yet I’m home with the newborn now and I keep finding myself doing all the cleaning that I’m told can wait. It’s the thing that keeps us sane amidst all the feedings, diapers and not sleeping.
I look forward to the day we get to sleep a bit more but this phase is so cuddly!