Bean: A trip to DC

We actually ventured out of Pennsylvania with baby Doodle this weekend. We took him to Washington, DC where Mr. Doodlebug and I met, used to live and still have many good friends. It was somewhat difficult and definitely tiring carting our little boy around the city in his carseat, which he hates. I think he doesn't like being told how he has to sit. Most parents use the car to calm their babies when nothing else will work. Our little Doodle becomes even more upset when put in the carseat and then the car. He's a baby after his grandfather's heart.

The trip from Philly to DC went very smoothly. I fed, burped and changed baby Doodle right before we left. He slept the whole way down until we got to Capitol Hill when he woke up and realized that he was hungry. We pulled over on 11th Street and I fed him in the back seat of the car. Then we continued on to the Russell Senate Office Building where we introduced baby Doodle to our former co-workers and current friends in the senator's office where Mr. Doodlebug and I used to work. I changed him on the floor of the senator's personal office and laid him on his chair for a photo op. Unfortunately, baby Doodle didn't get to meet the senator as he was in his home state. We left Capitol Hill for our friend's house where she and her 18-month old daughter were making us dinner. The daughter had bowls and plastic fruit and vegetables on the floor of the kitchen. She took quite an interest in 7-week old baby Doodle. She would ask me why he was crying, repeatedly tell me that he was "in his baby chair," and pointed out that my nursing pad was a baby yamaka. She was too cute. It will be exciting when baby Doodle starts talking. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures of their interactions.

I won't bore you with every detail of our trip. I'll just say that we were late to everything we went to and everyone we met up with. Luckily we have fabulous friends who understood that traveling with an infant is not easy and is quite unpredictable. On our trip home to Philly we had to stop 4 times to feed and/or burp baby Doodle. The whole trip took us from 3:30pm to 9:20pm. We should have been home at 5:00pm. To be fair to baby Doodle, we also had terrible traffic that we are attributing to college graduations, and we ate dinner at a Ruby Tuesdays the third time we stopped. Ruby Tuesdays has an excellent salad bar for a run-of-the-mill family restaurant and not-that-bad wine for $3.99 a glass. I felt awful for baby Doodle yesterday. He would turn bright red and scream so hard that he would lose his breath. We would pull off at the next exit and take him out of his seat. He would burp or be fed and then would go right back into the seat. At the restaurant he got to stretch out on the booth seat and get changed in the ladies room for the first time. He had a rough trip home and a tiring weekend, but he was adored by all and with his loving parents, which he appreciated.

Sleeping update: Baby Doodle has slept through the night 4 nights in a row. Thursday for 7.5 hours, Friday for 6.5 hours in our bed at our friend's house, Saturday 6 hours again at our friend's house, and last night for 8 hours in his cosleeper at our house. I hope this trend continues.