Vacation was wonderful!

We had a fabulous time… Here are some things I learned:

1- We are cursed. I don’t know who did this to us, but it is a brilliant form of torture. No matter what time of day we start, how far we have to go, where we are going, David and I are never, ever able to check into our hotel until 1:30am. We have proved this over and over and over, and did again on this trip – both on the way to Okaloosa Island and on the way back.

2- Killian is a waterbaby for sure! He had a wonderful time swimming in the ocean, swimming in the pool, and playing on the beach. He was soooo good, he didn’t even try to eat the sand, just happily played in it.

3- One week at the beach is enough to turn Killian into the Coppertone Baby. He has the cutest little white bottom, but the rest of him is a beautiful bronze:

4- It really, really sucks to have food poisoning at the beach. Especially when you’re 7 months pregnant and nursing a todller. Luckily I was only sick for about a day and a half.

5- After a week with my parents, Killy is very proficient at saying “Grandpa” and “Grandma.” He really liked having them around all week – after almost every meal he’d sign that he was all done, and after we got him out of the highchair he’d walk around the table and hug everybody. It was soooo cute!

6- It is a very long way from Kansas City to Okaloosa Island. From the time we left our house on 8/19 till we returned 8/28, we travelled 2300 miles exactly. That was about 39 hours in the car! Killy did very well, overall. At certain times, though, the “demon-baby” came out. As Erin described it, he was suddenly “all teeth and wrinkled nose” while yelling at us and pounding his little fists of fury. Whenever that happened we stopped at the next rest area and let him run around for about 15 minutes, and then he’d be back to little angelic self for the next few hours.

7- Rear-facing carseats are the way to go! I think the number one misconception parents have is that kids should be turned forward facing in their carseats right at 12 months. Its actually WAY safer to keep them rear-facing as long as possible – depending on your carseat, until they are 30-40 lbs! The moment you turn a child forward facing you increase their chance of dying in a carwreck by 60%. Anyway, we thought that it might make the trip more pleasent if he was forward facing, and he meets both the age and weight requirements to be forward-facing, so we gave it a whirl. He was not a bit happier, the dvd player was right behind the front-seat passenger’s head blaring Baby Einstein into their ears, and it just made me and David more nervous knowing Killy was at a greater risk. So, we turned him back rear-facing for the drive home and everything was so much better! I figure it will be better to have both babies rear facing this fall, anyway – hopefully, they’ll both be rear facing until we have a third baby someday, and then we’ll put Killy into the way-back seat (in a booster) when he’s ready to be forward facing.

So, all in all, it was a wonderful week. I cleaned the house good before we left, so it was nice to come home to a clean house. AND, Mom was sooo sweet and did a bunch of laundry right before we left, so I have a suitcase full of clean clothes to unpack and only a couple loads of laundry. Woohoo! David even vacuumed out the minivan last night after we unpacked it, so its not trashed.

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