Nate's Travels for the Week

So last week Nate logged a lot of miles in cars. The previous weekend we did our final move from Austin to Houston. Then mid-week Nate went back with me to take care of some last odds and ends in Austin. That included final clean up and closing on the house in Austin. Then to top it all off this last weekend we went to New Orleans. Nate has been such a trooper through all of this. He is sleeping in different places, had different schedules, and all kinds of new experiences. Even though we are not making it easy on him Nate just seems so very happy. Maybe all the changes are exciting for him and if we actually stay put for a couple weeks Nate will get bored.

This last weekend we traveled to New Orleans to visit friends that live outside of New Orleans and to spend a day at Jazzfest. The wife and I enjoy going to Jazzfest. We've been able to attend many times. We had someone who very graciously was willing to watch Nate while the wife and I went to Jazzfest. We never considered taking Nate to Jazzfest. Jazzfest is actually rather family friendly to a degree, but it just amazed me at how many kids we saw at Jazzfest. Nate would have loved it for an hour or two (the point is an hour or two, not all day). He would have been smiling at everyone and just loving taking in everything new. Then we saw all these exhausted kids that wanted to sleep and were not very happy. One of my favorites was this kid that was fast asleep in his fathers tent backpack. Couldn't have been any older than 2 and they were headed into an area close to a show that was extremely crowded and loud. I say that Jazzfest is rather kid-friendly, but on a popular weekend it can get really crowded and it can take a long time to get in and out of the fairgrounds. It is also New Orleans in late-April and early May, it can get really hot and humid. Not ideal for kids that can go from having a good time to upset and fussy in a matter of seconds. On a less crowded day where you were willing to take in some of the smaller acts, stay away from the major crowds, and were willing to cut the day short it could be ok experience for a small child. This same would apply for other outdoor music festivals I've been to.

Nate's First Christmas

For Christmas this year we traveled to see relatives. Looking back at some of the weather we ran into it might have been better if the relatives had come to Austin. Nate still traveled extremely well. On the first leg of the trip he slept all the way from Austin to Dallas. Some day this easy traveling will end.

In Dallas, we had Christmas with a good sized group of relatives. Nate was the baby of the group and everyone wanted to see and hold Nate. Nate received a number of very nice gifts, but he was most interested in putting wrapping paper and bows in his mouth.

Then we were heading to Tulsa for Christmas day. We saw the weather in Oklahoma was predicted to get bad, but we decided to make the trip as planned. We did leave earlier in order to try and beat the bad weather. The first 3/4 of the trip was no problem. Then as we neared Tulsa the snow and wind increased. The blowing snow (30+ MPH winds) made it extremely difficult to see the road in front of us. We passed numerous cars that had landed in the ditch. The visibility was the biggest problem, but as we made it to Tulsa the roads were also getting pretty slick. Oklahoma gets some ice and snow, but it was Christmas Eve and Oklahoma just doesn't have the infrastructure of states farther North to handle storms like this. If we had to do it over again we would have left much earlier or not made the trip at all. After a much slower trip than expected and a screaming Nate in the back seat (we didn't want to stop) we made it to our destination. Luckily for us the one time we managed to get stuck was in Nate's Grandparents driveway. We stopped long enough to unload Nate an get him fed before getting our car off the end of the driveway.

Six inches of snow in Tulsa kept us inside for our time in Tulsa. The Grandparent's certainly enjoyed having Nate around and it was neat to have a white Christmas. As long as we are in Austin I don't see a white Christmas here anytime soon. Overall a good Christmas that we'll certainly remember.

Celebration of Life

We've been gone the last few days. We made a trip with Nate to see family and celebrate the life of his great-grandmother. Unfortunately she passed away recently, but not without living a very full and rewarding life. Nate won't remember Mimi, but Mimi did get to meet Nate a couple times. Nate certainly brought lots of smiles even though she wasn't feeling her best.

Nate was really rather easy to travel with. The drive was a little over six hours each way and except for breaks when he was hungry he mostly sat quietly chewing on something or slept in his car seat. Him sleeping so much in the car during the day meant that he didn't sleep as well the first night. Combined with being in a different bed in a different place meant less sleep for everyone.

One thing we discovered while we were away was Nate is getting really close to cutting his first tooth. He has been drooling heavily for weeks, but we can finally feel the tooth beneath his gum. Nate has been a little fussy of late, but we can imagine that it could certainly be worse. Besides lots of drooling, Nate is also trying to chew on everything. He is getting very good at grabbing things and first things he does once grabbing something is try and put it in his mouth. As we go through teething I'll talk more about experiences and what seems to help and what doesn't.

Nate out and about

Today Nate and his mom got out and did a lot of stuff outside the house today. It was a very nice fall day in Austin, perfect for being outside. My understanding was Nate was in a very good mood today. I met Nate and Sherri for lunch today and Nate was happy, doing a lot of looking around, smiling, etc. While we had to attend somewhat to Nate we were able to actually eat a quick sandwich and talk without Nate going crazy at lunch. A very pleasant experience.

Tomorrow I get to spend some quality time with Nate as Sherri will get out of the house to do a couple things. Not that Nate will really care, but I'll be introducing him to a little college football. OU plays Texas tomorrow. While someday I'd like to take Nate as it is quite the experience to see that game in the Cotton Bowl with the stadium split down the middle, one half of the stadium red and the orange. Every year this is one of the biggest college football games of the year for us. We are somewhat a split household. Tomorrow one of us will be in burnt orange and the other of us will be in crimson. At this point, I won't be pushing one side or the other on Nate as I look what happened to Sherri. She rebelled against the family. All I can say is Boomer Sooner!

Road Trip

Not quite the same as the college road trip with the guys. This weekend we took Nate on his first overnight trip outside of Austin. We made a trip to see a number of relatives. We managed to see two of Nate's great-grandmothers, two great aunts, one set of grandparents, and an uncle. We found that we had lots of baby sitters during the days. Everyone was wanting to hold Nate.

The amount of baby stuff we had to stuff in the car was significant. Of course, there was the car seat. He slept well in the car which made the trip pretty easy. Then there was the portable crib, stroller, lots of clothes and diapers, breastpump and milk supplies, boppy, blankets, and rags. Plus probably a few other items I can't recall at the moment.

Nate traveled very well. We spent a total of about 14 hours in the car over the weekend. Most of the time he just slept in the car, at least as long as we were moving. We've found that unless Nate is really hungry he is out whenever the car is moving. At a young age he already doesn't like stop signs and red lights. On the way home we ran into some serious traffic south of Dallas (probably a wreck or a couple of wrecks). As we slowed and saw the massive backup ahead Nate woke up and started getting really fussy. My wife managed to jump into the backseat to try and comfort him. However, I could see that this was not going to be a good solution as we weren't going anywhere fast.

At this point, I grabbed the blackberry and looked at how bad it was on google maps. The traffic on google maps is a great thing. The only thing better with google maps and the blackberry may be the GPS built-into the phone. So the traffic backup was worse than I originally thought. The traffic was backed up for miles. I decided that we needed to keep moving. So I decided to take the back roads. We were close to an exit so I used the shoulder to make it to the exit sooner. Then using google maps and the GPS so I could track our progress as we made it through the back roads. Unfortunately, some of the small roads I picked were gravel (actually they were mud with a couple rocks). So travel was a little slow (but faster than the interstate) and my car is covered in mud.

In the end, we kept moving and Nate stayed asleep. I'm pretty sure we saved some time taking the back roads, but more importantly the drive was nice and quiet.

Road Trip

So Nate took his longest car trip to date today. My wife had a meeting about an hour and a half from home that she needed to make and it wasn't a great day for me to try and stay home to watch Nate. Also I don't think we have enough milk stocked up to feed him for the time she would be gone. Plus tomorrow my wife has another obligation and we'll need all the milk we've got to feed his growing appetite.

I was not on the trip, but Nate handled the trip well. Like many babies the car tends to make him sleepy. Most likely the motion. So most of the drive time he was asleep.

The fact the trip went well bodes well for a longer road trip we are thinking of taking sometime in the near future. Still no cross-country trips, but an overnight trip longer than two hours.

New baby is like jet lag

I was trying to describe to someone how I was feeling the last two months. Yes, I'm sleep deprived and not myself, but I'm still functional for at least part of the day, especially after lots of caffeine. Then there is the fact that you don't feel in control. You don't know when you are going to be able to sleep or how long you'll be able to sleep.

I started to think back and this feels a lot like jet lag when flying back from Asia. The big difference is it has taken a lot longer to get back to normal. In this case back to normal may be a different normal. The advantage of jet lag is you return to normal after a few days. It has been two months and we are still struggling with sleep.

So if you've experienced jet lag from really long flights and haven't had kids that might give you some expectation of what you are in for. If you've had kids and are going to be flying long distances for the first time you already have an idea of the jet lag will likely feel like. Of course, everyone is different on how they deal with sleep derivation, jet lag, and newborns. Just my personal observation.