Jess and Michael's Window

We just got back from a week at Marco Island, Florida where we rented a condo with Mike’s high school friends Brian and Amber and their son Landon (6). It was Evan’s first experience with the ocean and our first experience lugging a baby, all his required gear to the beach, and all our required must-record-every-second-of-this-experience equipment.

Ah…where do I begin? We knew it was going to be an Evan-baby-dictator trip and so we didn’t have any expectations of a great deal of relaxing beach time…which was good b/c there wasn’t much of that to be done (although we did trade a fair share of snorkel/shell hunting/suduko time). My mom and dad laughed out loud when I called them after we got home and told them we came back early b/c Evan was D.O.N.E with the beach. I think they thought we had some grandiose expectation of many hours soaking up sun and drinking margaritas. But no! We knew better and so we just focused on keeping Evan as happy as possible and b/c of this we all had a great time with relatively few baby meltdowns.

We did get a little camera and video crazy though. I laughed when Mike said one of his friends on facebook asked how we got so many pictures of Evan smiling at the beach and Brian replied “because he took 6000.” Ah yes…the first time parent. That’s us. Evan’s future siblings will surely be annoyed when they only have 6 pictures of themselves as babies. That’s okay, we don’t care. Also, we’ll sort of apologize for having posted about 600 pictures of Evan on facebook, but only “sort of” because like all the other facebook parents, we really don’t care if you like looking at them or not either. We are actively trying hard not to take him to audition for commercials though (Just kidding mom…sort of). We can’t help it, we’re in love.

So here’s how the trip went in summary:

Day 1: Driving to Florida, stop somewhere just north of Tampa. Evan rolls over (completely!) from back to front at our hotel for the first time! It is kind of silly what parents get excited about, but it IS exciting when you’ve been watching your baby try SO hard for SO long and he finally gets it…so it was the highlight of our day. That and Evan having not been kidnapped by the DQ employee who asked to hold him and then proceeded to glance suspiciously around while she did so. Mama Bear was ready to tackle someone (after this we decided we’d blame it on the swine flu and not allow any other stranger to touch him). I know my mom is going to kill me when she reads this anyway.
Day 2: Stop in St. Petersburg to see the Salvador Dali museum, which I’ve been wanting to see FOREVER (actually ever since I saw an exhibit of his with my Dad in Europe, when I was in college). It was awesome! I had to buy his autobiography…man was loo loo! Check it out. Mike and Evan really enjoyed it too . On the way to Marco I look to the water over a bridge and see a manatee! Evan rolls over from back to front and back again three times!! All while Mike is out getting dinner! He hasn’t done this again since.
Day 3: Evan meets the ocean and he’s not sure what he thinks about it. Ignores most of our attempts to get him smiling (which is good b/c we left the camera behind on purpose…do we really have to experience every “first” behind the lens? no.) while examining carefully the ginormous expanse of water and waves surrounding him. Does not cry so we deem the experience a success. Also gets to swim in the pool for the first time…much less overwhelming and likable. (BTW, this was Mother’s Day and what better way for me to spend my first MD than at the ocean w/ Mike and E!! Mike gave me the best heartfelt letter too).
Day 4: Evan decides the ocean is okay and we get him to smile at us making silly noises for the camera so we can pretend he was really smiling about swimming in the ocean.
Day 5: Evan hasn’t had a proper nap in a few days now and we happen to decide on this day to take him to another beach far away from the condo. He almost melts down because we all keep waking him up during his nap in his bouncy seat and tent for some reason this day. We skip Evan swimming today and make it back alright in time for a better nap. (We went to tigertail beach. was awesome! tons of shells and wildlife)
Day 6: Give Evan a break day. We let him have a morning nap in the condo and he sleeps for FOUR HOURS! Then we decide he must be ready to go back to the beach but a rainstorm keeps us from arriving in time for him to still be happy when we get there and he almost melts down again. This time when we get back he falls asleep in his wet shirt and diapers and then again naked faceplanted on the floor while I get his bath ready. Poor little guy!! It was kind of funny though. That night was our date night so Mike and I went out to eat at an awesome restaurant in the island founder’s historic house. It was SOOOO good.
Day 7: Our last day, we get in a good beach morning and then call it a day. By now we’re thinking we’ll probably head home a little early.
Day 8: Pack up and head home after Evan’s morning nap. We figured we’d probably stop somewhere but we ended up bullying through arriving in ATL at 2am. A rough trip of Mike driving almost the whole way and me crammed in the back seat making sure Evan is happy or asleep. Home sweet home.

Evan was about as perfect as a baby can be for such a long trip and with so many routine interruptions. He was so good, so happy and lovin’ on everybody…still a great traveler. But we didn’t want to push him too hard. When he did fuss, mostly he just wanted to sleep.

Aside from all our own little family accomplishments I have to write about Landon meeting Evan for the first time. We established the December 18th Birthday Club (What are the odds that Mike and Brian would both have a son on Dec. 18th?). Landon didn’t want to be President…he wanted to be “the Veterinarian,” and so he is the Vet and Evan is President. Landon was so sweet to Evan all week long, wanting to hold and/or entertain him every moment he was awake. He even bought Evan a present (“with my own money”) which was a tiny stuffed sea turtle, while he was out shopping. He also sang Evan Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (with some serious vibrato) and helped me put him to bed when we were babysitting him for Brian and Amber. When they babysat for us one night, Landon made sure we knew how much he helped. I think Evan has a surrogate big brother for life now, as he LOVED every second of this new bigger but littler than normal person. Thanks Landon!!

Now Evan is sick and tired of sleeping in his car seat or any car seat like thing (like his swing), but is also not used to his crib. I’m writing this at 10:45pm and I can tell it’s going to be a long night! Especially because his new favorite thing to do is roll over and then cry to be rescued instead of trying to flip back over himself. I am SO glad I don’t have to rely on anyone to flip me over everytime I roll over in bed. You can do it Evan!!

I think that Evan’s first trip away from home (other than Mana and Papa’s house) deserves its very own post. We had such a great time I wanted to save the memories for him, since he won’t remember it all. The fact that we had such a great time, in fact it could not have been more perfect, was a complete surprise to me…since I was sure that we’d have sleep troubles or daytime fussiness hampering our touristing. It turns out Evan is a fantastic traveler! I can’t wait to take him on more trips…and we’ll have the chance soon. He’s going on his first road trip to the beach next weekend! Here’s how things went in D.C.

So the reason we went to D.C. was to visit Daddy on business. Mike was in D.C. doing inspections for two weeks, which was the longest time he has been away since Evan was born. Let me tell you that I have renewed respect for single parents! We did great though and had lots of friends come over for dinner to keep us company. Aunt Cynthia came over and spent the night before we left so I could have time to pack and clean the house really well (we’re trying to sell it right now). And thank goodness she did, because otherwise I would’ve been up all night, and Evan had a pretty bad night so I was taking care of him a bunch in the early morning. I was really worried that he had an ear infection or something b/c he kept grabbing his ears and crying, which is very uncharacteristic for him when I am holding him. I think it was just residual pain from his shots earlier in the week.

Evan’s first flight – Aunt Cynthia got us to the airport and helped us check luggage. Then we had to go through security with ourselves, a diaper bag, a backpack, a car seat and a ginormous stroller (totally worth it). Luckily Evan is still small enough to fit in the baby bjorn and he had a grand time watching all the people and being fussed at by anyone and everyone near us. If I couldn’t have carried him like this, I don’t know how I would’ve made it through. The stroller didn’t fit through the xray machine and I thought it was going to get broken by the security people…they finally gave up and hand inspected it. Then we were homefree, until the flight.

For the flight, we ended up next to a business dude (I was hoping for a fussy baby-loving grandma) who was only very mildly interested in Evan (and probably thought “oh S***” as soon as he saw us). Evan was very good though and enjoyed watching the flight attendants gossip in their kitchen area right next to us. He got mad every time the business dude put his paper up and Evan couldn’t see, so he had to put it down in his lap. Ha Ha. Evan spent about 20 minutes sleeping in my lap and the rest of the time doing jumping jacks. He is very wiggly! But he barely fussed at all and his ears didn’t bother him at all! YAY!!

On the way back we struck gold with a nearly empty plane. So we got an entire row to ourselves, which meant Evan could ride strapped in his carseat. He slept that entire flight and I got to finish my book (The Alexander Cipher – it is really good!). The funniest thing about this leg was that in the terminal Evan was very loud, practicing his babbling and it was very quiet otherwise. So everyone had to come see who was making so much noise. The two flight attendants womanning the counter were tickled with him and allowed a very long line to accumulate before they noticed they weren’t doing their jobs…they blamed it on Evan and his bib which said “chick magnet” on it.

As for the actual trip. It was awesome. We had two days with Daddy and one day on our own. We’d get up, eat breakfast and head out the door to see the sights. We just packed everything on or under the stroller and Evan slept and ate when he felt like it. When he was awake we had him in the bjorn facing outward so he could see the people and museum objects too and he had a great time. I think he really enjoyed the art museum. He also liked the times we spent in the shade on a blanket just playing. Unfortunately, it was reallllly hot outside so we didn’t get to spend as much time outside as I would’ve liked. We wore Evan out during the day and staying out late eating dinner, so he had no problem sleeping every night…one night he slept nine hours straight without a peep! But I guess he wasn’t too tired, b/c he was quite cheerful during the day. I’m sure all the new experiences, seeing everything, riding on planes and subwaytrains, and seeing so many people was a lot to process! Other than the museums and sites we got to see, we also visited with our friends Tim and Felissa at their new house and my highschool friend Katie. It was so much fun! Can’t wait to travel some more!

As for me, I think the natural history museum was my favorite. They had some amazing skeletons of evolving marine mammals, including one that was so long it looked like a giant sea serpent. When it was first found, the paleontologists thought it was a lizard! They also had a great exhibit on criminal forensics with murdered skeletons. It showed how CSIs figure out how someone died. I guess some of them were just “mystery” skeletons at archaeological sites too. They were all neat…I love CSI. I also just plain enjoyed walking around the white house and the capital and all the sites knowing that we now have a new President. It felt goooood, and I was proud.