Colin is 9 months today

It’s almost a bit surreal but Colin is now 9 months old today. It was an eventful last 3 months. We moved to New York, put him into daycare, and experienced a lot of firsts. He started eating solid foods and started crawling. I had heard things move very fast in that first year and I can attest that it is the case.

As soon as it feels like they hit a period of time, it goes by quickly and next thing you know they’re onto to the next thing. It’s only going to be a matter of time until he’s walking and talking. For Mom and I, it’s been a big 9 months of figuring out how to parent.

We’re back in New York after spending almost 2 weeks in Seattle and San Francisco attending a wedding and visiting friends and family. I suppose we should consider ourselves baby travel veterans at this point as Colin took his 6th flight yesterday, 3 of which were cross country and 2 others going from SF to Hawaii.

Like most things Colin has taken on, he was a champ. We feel fortunate that we have a relatively easy baby that goes with the flow. After flying to Seattle, he had one morning with an early wake-up and then adjusted to the time zone the next day. After flying back and getting in the late afternoon, he had one wake up at 8:30 for about an hour and then slept through the night.

I realize how lucky Sophia and I are. We do focus a lot on schedule and sleep training, but at the same time, I know a lot of this is the luck of the draw. Despite being an easy kid that travels well, Sophia and I have learned a lot.

Traveling with a kid, even an easy one, is undoubtedly a lot harder and stressful. You have a ton to pack and plan around. There are many moments where he just doesn’t want to sit still and it’s an arm workout holding him for hours at a time. Traveling even by yourself across the country is tiring and stressful, and has always thrown me off for at least a day. With a kid, you’ll need a lot more recovery time.

At the same time, most of the stress and anxiety comes from my own head often. I had a ton of anxiety before this trip. I lost a bit of sleep thinking about how stressful the trip would be. Afterall, it was a great trip where everything worked out and I was glad we had the opportunity.

In these 9 months, I think my biggest learning is that I need to roll with the punches more and just embrace the situation. Having a kid is hard and a trip with him won’t ever be like it was before. But that’s part of life and there’s a lot of beauty in that as well. I should feel fortunate that I’m able to take Colin with us on these trips rather than stress about it. Everything always works out and I need to remember that.