home sick + tailgate weekend & traveling with baby

I’m home sick today, which I feel guilty about (like I don’t deserve a day in bed to read and watch cooking shows and write and watch Gilmore Girls and maybe catch up on Parenthood).  But such is life, and mostly I am just thankful Gerrit can stay home from work today so that I can have as little contact with Evelyn as possible in the hopes of not getting her sick.  My fever seems to be dropping on its own a bit this morning, so I’m hoping all will be well soon.

But, seeing as how I have been ordered to bed for the rest of the day (thanks Gerrit…really) I suppose its time to catch up on some blogging.  We should start with this weekend I suppose (and which I wanted to post about Monday…but then there were 10 loads of laundry and a baby who wouldn’t nap…and then on Tuesday there was work and then the whole getting a fever thing).  So here we are on Wednesday talking about the weekend.

We went down to Auburn this weekend for Evelyn’s first car trip/tailgate/Auburn visit.  It was fun and good, but to be honest most of what I could think of was that scene in Modern Family when they go to Hawaii and Claire says “I’m a mom travelling with my kids.  To me, this is a business trip.”

My goal for the weekend was to survive and for things to go as smoothly as possible.  And I think they did.  Evelyn was a trooper on Friday with so much time in the car, then time in her car seat in the stroller, then running errands.

Saturday at the tailgate was a bit more rough…she had a blast with all the new people and places, but as a result she wouldn’t nap much and so we ended the day with an exhausted baby (and because the football game was a night game we didn’t actually get settled in bed until about 1:00 in the morning).

It was fun, it really was.  I loved getting to tote Evelyn around Auburn for her first time and take a picture in front of the sign (and think that in 21 years or so we might be taking the same pictures except with a cap and gown).  I loved tailgating with my family and walking around town on a game day.  I loved going to the game.

But mostly I am proud that we made it through the weekend relatively smoothly.  I figured out breastfeeding Evelyn without a go-to familiar place.  We figured out how to make car trips with her go as smoothly as possible (timing it with a normal nap, and making a good long stop for lunch).  We learned that keeping her out until almost midnight doesn’t have to throw her off too much as long as we try to get her sleep as much as possible while out in the evening.  I learned that we can all survive having the sleep schedule thrown off a bit, and while we had a VERY sleepy Sunday with her and a refusing-to-nap-for-longer-than-30-minutes Monday, she took normal naps yesterday.

So here we are mid-week, I am home sick, there are still about 5 piles of laundry on our bedroom floor, and we had a rough night last night sleep wise (both baby and thunder and lightning related), but we are surviving it all.  I think that’s one of the biggest lessons motherhood is teaching me: just make it through and call it good (because it really is).