Maine 2012 – First Family Vacation

Things have been quiet around here since we just got back from our first family vacation!  We rented a house in York Beach, Maine last summer for a week in late August and wanted to continue the tradition for this summer.  We had decent weather (there were a couple rainy and cloudy days that I think were remnants of Hurricane Isaac), but at least it wasn’t overly hot since our rental house didn’t have air conditioners.  We spent a lot more time at the house this summer since Toby was with us, but we were able to get out each day and do something new.  Both sets of grandparents were able to come up so we had extra sets of hands to help out, which was nice :)  Let’s just say I quickly realized that vacationing with a kid is not really a “vacation” anymore. 

Getting ready for this trip was exhausting – just trying to remember all the stuff Toby would need was crazy!  I basically went through what we do the entire day, starting with his morning routine, and made a list of things we needed to bring.  I’ll do a separate post with my lists I updated from last summer.  My organization paid off, though, since we didn’t forget anything and we adjusted pretty well in the rental house.  I was also really anxious about wondering how I would feed Toby the whole week.  I think people forget that even if I’m bottle feeding him, I still have to pump to keep my supply up (or to keep me from getting too engorged).  That means I had to make sure we came back to the house after 4 hours or so, or I would bring my pump with us and plan to pump in the car.  I managed to keep up my supply, but it will be much easier next summer when he’s drinking regular milk all the time! 

Toby did really well the whole week – he was so good during the day and was fussy only a couple evenings.   He played a lot and also really started interacting with us more this past week.  He was “talking” (cooing) and smiling all the time.  If you continue talking to him, he loves making noises back at you.  He also hit some milestones this past week, which was exciting.  He started grabbing his toys on his activity mat and infant seat and is oh so close to rolling over.  He pulls his legs up all the way to his chest and moves to one side, but just can’t roll over completely yet.  He also started sticking his tongue out ALL the time and is always trying to lick his onesie or shirt.  He sucks on his fist a lot, too, but he was doing that before we got to Maine. 

I was worried he wouldn’t sleep well in the pack n’ play, but he adjusted quickly.  The first couple nights he woke up a couple hours earlier than he normally does at 1AM to eat, and he got up again 4 hours later at 5ish instead of normally getting up around 7ish.  The third and fourth nights he managed to stay asleep until 2:30ish, so that wasn’t so bad.  And then one night he slept from 8:45PM – 4:15AM, which I think is the longest stretch he’s ever done.  Hubby and I woke up at 3:30AM that night wondering if he was okay because we hadn’t heard him cry yet!  He did really well with naps in the pack n’ play, too – he averaged about 45 minutes each time we put him down.  The only thing that worried me was that he moved like crazy in it, even with the swaddle done tightly.  I would lay him the long way on the mattress and sometimes when I came back to get him when he woke up, he turned himself 90 degrees so he was laying the short way.  And one time he managed to scoot all the way to side of the crib, smooshing his face against it, so I went in to move him and that woke him up completely from his nap.  Even though the side of the pack n’ play is mesh, I still felt like I needed to move him.  All in all, it went much better than I anticipated!

Enough talk, here’s some pictures to recap our week:

We walked down to the beach a couple times and then did an actual beach day towards the end of the week.  We visited the Nubble Lighthouse (I want to do a family picture there each year now), went to the zoo in York for the first time, took a road trip up to Freeport to shop at L.L. Bean and other stores, and of course had to hit up the Kittery Outlets to purchase some fall and winter clothes for Toby.  We also had lots of ice cream from Brown’s and the Scoop Deck in Wells.  Time to start counting calories for real again if I want to fit into my jeans before it gets cool out!