Julian Ridley Schrock: Our first family vacation

Well we survived our first vacation with Julian in tow to Chicago. It was a great time and he was amazing! We stayed with our good friends Lisa and Jeff and their daughter Emma who we met for the first time. She is 1 month younger than Julian and they played together great. We also got to meet our nephew, Brandon's fiance who is beautiful and sweet and very quiet. Just like Brandon.

Here is a high level recap:

We had such a fun time with Lisa, Jeff and Emma. Julian woke up yesterday morning quite sad without his playmate.

I think the kids were learning from each other because Emma started saying Mama and I swear Julian is now making Emma noises.

Emma is a perfect match for Julian. She is spunky and tough. She body slammed him many a time, pulled his hair, plucked his eye out of his head and he loved every second of it.

Julian was so smiley and happy 99% of the time. The other 1% wasn't as great due to tiredness and teething. It appears he is getting teeth numbers 5 and 6, the FANGS on top. Oh and Lisa's Dad. He seemed a little freaked out by him, not sure why.

Julian didn't sleep any worse than usual and in fact maybe even better. He would sleep in past 7 which is really 8 our time (with his usual night wakings.)

I'm afraid Julian told Emma in code that sleeping through the night is overrated and she should really start waking up way more often.

Julian had his first pancake and taste of pizza sauce. He loved them both. Emma had her first Cheerios and she didn't seem that impressed with them.

Traveling with a baby was not so hard. I think we got lucky this time though. You would think we were the first people to do it with how triumphant I feel. The most annoying thing was having to take him out of the Mei Tai to go through BWI security because I waited until the last minute hoping they wouldn't make me take him out. We had him in the car seat for take off where he cried then fell asleep, cried, fell asleep, cried, sleep, cried, sleep. I am imagining the pressure changes may have had something to do with it so once the seatbelt light was turned off we took him out and strapped him in with his flight vest while I nursed him the rest of the way while he slept. The way home we decided to check our car seat and just use the vest. He had no interest in nursing so we gave him sips of water when our ears were popping. But he was an angel on the trip home from the moment we left Lisa's all the way until we got home. Amazing, amazing boy.

Julian started standing on his own while we were there for a couple seconds at a time. And yesterday he stood alone for almost a minute. I'm afriad walking is in our near future. Booo hooo.

We had great weather except for the second we hit the park that is located in a frozen tundra

Psycho Baby (a store downtown) has a lot of cool yet expensive things. I almost, ALMOST bought Julian a $42 t-shirt. I got caught up in the romance of vacationing. I came to my senses and bought an overpriced bib instead. All in the name of market research of course. But man was that t-shirt cool.

Gone are the days of totally relaxing vacations. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy traveling with Julian because I really did. All I'm saying is that our vacations were a time for Bryan and I to reconnect, have deep talks over dinner and linger after dessert. We would sleep in and take naps when we wanted. Explore cities all day long. We could just escape all the stresses. We didn't really have that option with Julian but I still wouldn't have it any other way. I guess I didn't realize this until we were there.

Julian started saying Mama before we left for Chicago. He is saying it in a way that shows he knows exactly who Mama is. I think this is his first official word. Although instead of ma-ma it's said like mmmmmmm-MA, mmmmmmm-MA and many, many, MANY times throughout the day. Emma was saying Mama by the time we left.

Emma has tons of killer toys that Julian loved and I'm trying to fight the urge to go out and buy them. I know if I do he will play with them for like a second. Still, maybe one little toy won't hurt. Or 10.

Vacation was way too short.

Now for the fun part:

I've turned a corner, I am only posting ONE photo from our Chicago trip and letting you see the rest in Flickr

This picture was perfect because incase you didn't know, Julian's nickname is Cricket.