A Successful Trip

We're back from DC and I'm very happy to report that we're all in one piece! Although that probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to you, based on how anxious I was feeling before the trip, I have to say it's a huge relief. I don't have any pictures yet (I'm at the mercy of my mom for those since I really didn't have much room for a camera on top of everything else I brought), but I can give you a brief look at what our week was like last week.

First of all, Jayden is a born traveler, I'm convinced now. You would have never known that he was sick with a cold and out of his element being two time zones away from his normal life. He was such a trooper and made the trip very easy on my mom and I. It wasn't until the last day of the trip that he seemed to be adjusting to the new time zone but even now that we're back, it doesn't seem like he really deviated too far from Mountain Standard Time (phew!).

The trip was well worth it for me. Besides the fact that I got a lot of my required training out of the way for the year, I also met one of my bosses face to face (and visited with my other boss that I have already met face to face), I met a ton of my fellow coworkers that I've only spoken with on the phone or emailed and I can finally say I've seen the Cherry Blossoms in full bloom (although we did miss the peak of the blossoms by a few days)! By the end of the week, I was done though. I can only take so much social interaction. Not to say that I'm a hermit but I'm also not a social butterfly either and I did enough mingling and chatting for TWO social butterflies this week!

I'd have to say that the trip was the MOST successful for my mom. I'm very proud of her because this trip was completely outside of her element but she did a great job of going with the flow and trying out a lot of new adventures. And she also got to spend an entire week almost exclusively with her grandson. Just a few notable accomplishments that we will remember are learning how to ride the metro, eating sushi, finding her way to my office from the hotel (several times!) and walking all over the DC Metro area with Jayden in tow. I think it's safe to say that she doesn't regret agreeing to this adventure with us!

Unfortunately there was one incident that left me feeling horribly incompetent as a mother although I've gotten over that feeling and am chalking it up to a learning experience now. We spent one particularly warm afternoon outside and poor Jayden's little face got sunburned. I forgot to put his sun hat in the diaper bag so he ended up getting too much sun on his face. Having been sunburned too many times to count myself, I felt particularly bad about this because I felt like I should have known to keep him covered up. Although the burn didn't seem to bother Jayden (does anything?!), every time I looked at him, I wanted to cry. I will definitely take extra precautions in the future to ensure something like that doesn't happen again. And now he's peeling and has a bit of a tanned face. I think the worst part for me is that his skin is brand new and it's my job to protect him but I guess the guilt comes along with being a mom. I'll never be perfect so this was a learning experience indeed.

Hopefully I will have some pictures to share soon and I'll add a few more stories later on. Thanks for everyone who was praying for a safe and successful trip for us!