This weekend we went to Seattle. Mike, Isabel and I got up at the butt crack of dawn Friday to make the plane that left at 7am. If nobody has ever traveled with a 6-month old, well, let me tell you, it's sometimes fun, sometimes not so fun. For example, when you have to wake up a baby before 5 am from dead sleep, not so fun. Feeding a mostly-asleep baby, also, not so fun. After the biting nipple feeding fiasco, with eyes still closed, I proceeded to try to dress our little bundle. Well, let me tell you, she did not feel like getting dressed. *sigh*
At the airport, you'd think that these security people had never seen a stroller before. No, the stroller doesn't fit into the itty bitty new security machines. Yes, I know for a fact. Ugh, it's 5:30 in the morning people! I'm trying to smile and be super nice to you, but NOOOOO you have to be impossible and rude and stupid!! Oh well. Guess karma's a bitch, because you still have to stand there and deal with stupid people for the rest of the day, and I get to leave the area and get on a plane. C-ya!
Arriving in Seattle, we rented the car and immediately went to Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond, for my husband's two informational interviews. The baby and I got stuck here, as the only place it seemed like we were supposed to be was the "mothers' room." Now, I realize that this is a place of business, so I didn't really expect it to be amazing, but we weren't even really welcome to hang out in the lobbies of these buildings. The "mothers' rooms" were made for those working moms who need to pump. There were two cubicles with little screens to draw across them.
We met up with Pete, Mike's friend, after his interviews and he made amazing poached salmon! It was fantastic! The next day we walked from Pete's house all the way down to Pike's Place Market. The weather was great, and the market was also such fun people watching for Isabel. She didn't freak out once! Later we ate at a great Vietnamese noodle house, Long, and I had the best Pho a girl could ask for. There were meatballs!
This trip was stressful, but also really fun. It's hard to expect people without babies to understand that everything takes a little longer, has to go a little slower, and is totally harder to do with a child. I try to make it seem easy, but that's not always an option.
Sunday we went to the beach and then the Space Needle. The baby loved both places, but again, going to the beach involved carrying the stroller across sand, because she was sleeping. It's just always an adventure...
After the space needle, we met up with Pete's fiance Anjali and her cousin Shaman. Shaman and I really hit it off immediately. We've since exchanged e-mails and phone numbers. It was really great to breathe in her fresh air. At dinner, the baby decided that instead of taking a nap in her stroller, she would arch her back until she fell through the crack and land on the floor. She then lost it. We were in the middle of a really really nice classy restaurant. Meanwhile, my husband, only focused on the food in front of him, just glared at me and asked why I didn't strap her in. Well, honey, I didn't strap her in, because I had just fed her, and I thought she would go down for a nap. Not try to escape by flying out of the stroller onto the floor and then screaming. She was fine, by the way. No bumps or scrapes, just a little surprised I think.
After dinner, we had to walk back to Pete's to get the car. But then they all wanted to hang out, which is fine, but again, we have the baby. Isabel is definitely on a semi-schedule, and knows when it's bathtime, bedtime, etc. She flipped out at their house, and I didn't want to feed her because I knew she'd just fall asleep until we got back to the hotel then demand to be fed again. It was the pits. We got down to the garage where the car was, and lo and behold, there's totally a scratch on the car. There were NO scratches on the car when we picked it up, and this scratch was all the way down to the paint. Well, the one to point it out was Pete. His fiance had driven the car earlier back to the garage so that we could all go to the space needle. She did not care to go as it is expensive, and she'd already been there.
Mike and I exchanged looks, and Pete wanted to analyze where it came from. I just got into the car with a sigh, and patiently waited for my husband. I was thinking, "this is what we get for letting other people drive the car when we're not around." We let them drive the car because they had free parking at their house, so it made sense that we could keep it there. They would drop us off in the evenings, and pick us up in the mornings.
The rental car place at the buck of dawn on Monday morning didn't even NOTICE!! It was fantastic. We have deemed this trip a success, and the baby came home and slept for 2 hours in the morning yesterday. I think she was just pooped. Not getting a lot of sleep ourselves, we went into bed last night around 9:30, and slept like the dead until the baby woke up this morning at 6.
