Aaron, Henry, Newman and I took our first official family vacation to the Oregon Coast over the holiday break.

While the dreary, cold Oregon coast is a far cry from the steamy, hot tropical vacations of our past, it was convenient, relatively inexpensive and most importantly, not our living room—where we’ve spent seemingly 28 hours a day since having Henry.

First and foremost, we had a good time and it was really good to get away. I got to smell and hear the ocean which is always rejuvenating. Henry got to see and touch the ocean, which, while he’ll never remember it, makes his parents feel accomplished in some way.

“Our kid has touched the Pacific Ocean.” He can check that off his bucket list now.

Henry, meet the Pacific.

Proof.

It’s cold at the coast!

However, we did come away with some lessons learned, and they are as follows:

1. Your dog–remember him??–will do everything in his fur laden power to stifle even the slightest tinge of giddy you feel at sharing this experience with the new tiny person. Newman used to be the star of our vacations—we lived to see him romp in the ocean. This time, we spent less time romping about bitterly cold Oregon waters with a baby in tow and A LOT of time cooped up in a hotel room, doing a lot of tiny person activities like sleeping, eating and playing blocks. To ensure we fully understood how he felt about this change in vacation activity, Newman, our normally well behaved canine, pulled off the following shenanigans: a) he peed on our pile of dirty clothes b) he anger pooped in the car and c) the ONE time we left him in the room the entire trip, he managed to release the handicapped accessible door handle and let himself out of the hotel room. At a strange resort. In the rain. With no collar on. Luckily, he didn’t get far and was standing outside, confused, wet and waiting for us when we got back to the room, but it was a moment that truly made my heart sink considering what could have happened. Newman, 1 —  Rest of Family, 0.
   

   Newman pretended not to notice this little incident.

2. The best laid plans of mommies and men… need to be better laid plans when babies are involved. Rather than leave Portland at, say, a logical time, we chose to wait until Henry woke from a nap. To those of you non-parents not yet cringing, this means we now had two hours of totally awake baby in the car seat time. In all, the guy did his best, but there were some tense moments. Also, we failed to consider our dinner dining situation before leaving and ended up eating dinner on the road at the only place we could find open…. Shari’s. Whilst dining at Shari’s, Henry proudly shat himself and stunk up our whole section (bratty child at table behind us even announced, “Mommy, it smells like a dirty diaper over there!”) and Aaron was served a blatantly undercooked piece of chicken–like so undercooked it was pink. Thankfully, Aaron was not salmonella’d, and we were able to change Henry’s diaper in the ummm… uber clean Shari’s bathroom…but it was not an enjoyable Christmas dinner by any means.
3. The baby doesn’t give a crap about the [insert exciting destination] ocean. You know what he does give a crap about, however? Having his 12 pounds of poop filled diaper changed on the floor of the car, in a deserted, dirty beach parking lot, when its 40 degrees and windy, alongside the frigid Oregon coastline, sporting a a snotty, runny nose with cold, wet wipes being dragged up his teeny behind. #mommyfail
   

   Angry diaper change coming soon….

I’m hoping that, as time marches on, and we learn/remember these important lessons, travel will get easier, but something tells me it’s just not that simple. And such…. we take a deep sigh, kiss those cute baby cheeks with all we’ve got, and continue on down this path they call parenthood.

For all his complaining, Newman had a pretty good time and in the end, the ocean part really was all about him!