The Baby Expert: Family Vacation

For Spring Break, we took a family vacation with the in-laws to Hualien, which is a very picturesque city on the Eastern coast of Taiwan, for 4 days and 3 nights. It was the perfect opportunity for some r&r, except there can be no rest and relaxation when a baby is involved.

Highlights of the trip included:

The wife thinking that tadpoles become fish. While on a walk in the mountains, we came across a puddle full of tadpoles. The wife then matter of factly stated that tadpoles became fish when they grew up. Apparently, someone was sleeping during their first grade science lesson about the life cycle of a frog. But it provided for a good laugh.

Having the owner of the b&b ask the wife if she was pregnant with a second child. I suppose that wasn’t exactly a highlight for the wife, but it did provide me with another good chuckle. However, it was a bit unfortunate that I wasn’t there to personally witness the look on the owner’s face when she found out she was mistaken. That must have been a pretty cringe-worthy/awkward moment. Personally, I kind of like the pooch. It’s very comfortable to lay my head on. If anything, this will probably motivate the wife that much more to go hit the track with her new running shoes that she finally bought.

Caitlyn becoming bff’s with Uncle Jonathan. Not exactly sure when or how this happened, but Caitlyn suddenly became best buds with Uncle Jonathan while on the trip, seeking him out countless times throughout the trip to hold hands or be held by him. Even requests from Mommy to hold her were spurned in favor of Uncle Jonathan. So what exactly is drawing Caitlyn to him? Was it the Bluetooth thingamabobber that he had clipped to his shirt? The scent of the toothpaste he was using? Does she prefer the bigger screen of his Samsung Note over our iPhone? Some many questions, but so few answers. At least we know who to go to when the wife and I want to have a date night.

Lowlights of the trip:

Getting bit over 90 times by “mosquitoes.” I use the term mosquitoes loosely because they weren’t really mosquitoes, but more like tiny fleas with wings. I’ve never seen anything like them before, but if I had to choose between real mosquitoes and these fleas with wings, I would choose the latter because they don’t make the same annoying sound that mosquitoes make when buzzing around. In any case, I was able to keep myself busy counting all my bites during car rides, so it wasn’t all for naught.

Being stuck on a 2-hour train ride with a baby who wouldn’t go to sleep even though she was tired. The entire trip consisted of Caitlyn squirming around and playing with smartphones. When she got tired of ours, she’d go looking for someone else’s, and when she got tired of theirs, she’d go find another person. I think we’ve gotten her into an extremely bad habit. Personally, I’d rather just completely do away with the phone and iPad, but what’s the alternative? Having a screaming baby cry the entire trip isn’t exactly ideal either. Definitely not looking forward to the plane ride back to the States this summer.