A report from our adventures on (and getting to and from) the Cape: we survived, though we crawled in to bed late Monday night feeling like we'd gone ten rounds in a very small boxing ring with a pack of hungry, ferocious badgers.
We left our house at 6:15 am on Thursday, and traveled to the airport. Though we arrived 100 minutes before our flight and had checked-in online, the three of us got to the gate at the end of the boarding rush, and were almost the last people - except for those who actually sprinted to the gate - to board. Lesson learned: things take longer with babies. Lots longer. Axel nursed during take off, discretely underneath the nursing cover, and we spread out in our the row we happened to have to ourselves, though we only paid for two seats. After playing dance on Mama's lap, there was minimal fussing, and Axel quickly settled in for a nap. Sean decided that was a good idea.
Upon landing and almost losing a bag that then mysteriously appeared in the dark back hallways of Logan airport, we picked up the rental car and rental car seat, and used a combination of Google Maps directions (accurate) and the Hertz GPS device (inaccurate - it seemed to think we had an amphibious vehicle floating through Boston Harbor when in fact we were in the not really all that new tunnels) to make our way to my dear friend Marbree's apartment in Somerville. We went to a pizza place where a handful of other groups with children were eating. Some couple gave Axel dirty looks because he was exercising his vocal chords. He's figured out he can do high-pitched screeches, and sputter his lips together in a motorboat imitation. This couple was the second of the anti-baby crowd we encountered, after a cranky male flight attendant - traveling forces them in to close contact with babies. There were many in the pro-baby crowd, too, far more than the anti-crowd. I just don't get the anti-baby folks. They were babies once. I'm sure they made loud noises at inappropriate times and pooped all over someone and had tantrums. If Axel were in the middle of the Russian Tea Room, rolling around on a knit blanket with a pile of rattles and teddy bears blocking the dessert tray, or flinging expensive and irreplaceable vases around the Louvre, I would understand the disapproval, but we're talking about a pizza place.
It's not like I tried to make them touch my baby, chasing them around the tables with a six-month-old in hand the way I remember boys chasing girls in the cafeteria wielding the guts from the worms disected in 6th grade science class. I get that not everyone wants to hold and gush over babies, but why be negative about their very existence? Marbree, luckily, is firmly pro-baby, though she does not have any babies herself. She was the perfect hostess for Axel's first night outside of Colorado.
The next day, we drove to the Cape, met up with another friend and her lovely daughter for brunch, and swooped on down to Provincetown. On the way, Sean pulled over in to one of those former rest stops that's now nothing but a chained-off parking area so I could nurse Axel. By this point, he'd realized that flapping at the nursing cover offered mealtime entertainment, and, by the end of the trip, half of Mass had ample opportunities to see my boob. Though I told myself that all the women have breasts themselves, and everyone else has seen them on cable TV, I still felt really, really uncomfortable being half-topless in public. I'm much happier with my flesh covered up.
While in Provincetown, we hung out with Axel's east coast grandparents, and spent half the time exploring the area, the other half encouraging naps and playtime back at our (dry, warm) hotel room. The weather when we arrived was a slightly overcast mid-50s, and it was the best we got all weekend. Axel stared at the ocean and toured town nestled in the Baby Bjorn, his fuzzy bear hoodie pulled up around his ears. Hoodies are apparently the garment of choice for everyone in early May on the Cape. At a local coffee shop that we hit five times (hot drinks being right up their with hoodies on the list of damp, cool weather necessities) and a delicous breakfast spot we visited twice, Axel became known as baby bear. During the trip, we were caught in a few windy, torrential downpours of the sort in which your umbrella is pulled inside out as you rush back to your hotel room after a leisurely half-eaten lunch to nurse your baby. Axel seemed to find all the rain and wind to be interesting or, if not interesting, then simply something perplexing that must be endured.
After all the relative smoothness of the trip, we had high hopes for the flight back home. The flight out went so smoothly. Alas, it was a full-on explosion. There was a barrelfull of baby triggers: a long car ride in from Provincetown, constepation (no poop for the last 24 hours), bedtime interference (not in Denver, time, but with the slowly moved up by Axel East Coast bedtime), and teething. Well, I think he's teething, but I've thought that he was teething on and off for three drooled-filled months now and yet no pearly whites have appeared. This time, his grandparents brought up teething with no suggestion from me, so maybe it's really true. Regardless of the causes, the flight back was three and a half hours of baby rage, interrupted by one brief 15 minute nap and a few grins at other passengers - never at his parents, only at those in the row behind him. Rocking and toys and airplane and multiple attempts to nurse, all to no avail. I got dangerously close to weeping myself and wished that rather than the five extra diapers and sunscreen, I'd brought along a carton of earplugs for 150 fellow passengers. Finally, thirty minutes before we landed, Axel fell asleep. My back and my legs had been tensed up between the slightly frantic rocking, bouncing, and wishing that the child would just give in to sleep with every muscle. Once back home after somehow getting through the baggage claim and long walk to the parking lot, I had the lovely sensation that I'd been beaten with a lead pipe. A not-quite-fourteen-pounder beat the crap out of his father and me in a space the size of a port-a-potty.
We'll travel again. But next time, we'll be sure to pack the ear plugs and the whiskey.
