Resiliency and Love from Two Weeks on the Road with Beena Boo
The last two weeks, I’ve taken a break from blogging on Raising Beena Boo for our family’s annual East Coast trip. Beena Boo’s dad and I decided to go on our annual two-week, four state visit of family from the mid-Atlantic to the Northeast. This year one-year old Beena Boo joined for the trip. We experienced many things on the trip; connection, love, sleep deprivation — and new resiliency.
If you have ever traveled with kids, you likely have dealt with disrupted sleep habits and the havoc that causes. (Maybe you’re cringing reading this.) For those parents-to-be who haven’t experienced this, be cautioned, but don’t panic: you may have a unicorn child who sleeps great anywhere they go. They exist. BB doesn’t happen to be one of them. In fact, she doesn’t sleep well even at home with a carefully executed sleep routine. BB first had an ear infection, then NYC’s intensity kept her up, and then she settled down from five to one or two nighttime wakings at the northern most and final leg of our trip.
Each night of the trip, my husband and I would lie in bed listening to BB’s angry screaming, and agonize over whether to re-sleep-train her that night or to wait until we returned home. We’d complain about surviving the next day. The next day or later that morning, we’d get up and we’d make it. By mid-day, we’d be with family having fun — playing, sharing meals, and enjoying each other. At the end of our trip, we were filled up with love from being with our families. We were both sad to leave — and — ready to get home so that BB would get on her regular(ish) sleep schedule.
How did we manage to have a meaningful and fun time with family while surviving the exhaustion of minimal sleep and travel? My guess it’s the power of love and connection. Being with our family members gave the support and endurance to overcome physical limits. Also, through our care for BB and each other, my husband and I have developed a way to support each other through survival mode. What my husband and I learned through our trip was that we have a resiliency that we didn’t know we had.
This increased capacity came home from the trip with us. Yesterday, I went to the Emergency Room for what turned out to be a migraine. We juggled me getting to the hospital, our nanny covering for us, BB’s dad joining me and working remotely from the side of my hospital bed, making difficult medical decisions, and then BB’s dad going to the office, and me returning home hopped on migraine meds and carrying for BB until she went to sleep. Somehow all of this happened and we were all fine.
Despite the tense day, BB slept from 7:55p.m. until 5:10a.m. without waking up. Perhaps, she is becoming more resilient too.
Until next week and in gratitude,
Cecilia
