Pregnancy Diary Week 31: Holiday

Week 31

This week we have been living it up in the Isle of Wight. This is holidaying at its most intrepid. I would consider myself as reasonably well travelled and fairly adventurous on the whole, but since having our first son our passports have seen bugger all action. We've indulged in a long weekend in the new forest (ooh la la), another at the Suffolk Center Parcs (get us), and now we're jetting off to sunny Seaview, wait for it, for a whole week. We're going via car and even boat, across the great wide Solent. Just call me Phileas Fogg. The idea is to have a reasonably relaxing holiday that's fun and memorable enough for our little one but not too exhausting for me now that this pregnancy is getting pretty long in the tooth. We are being accompanied by the Grandparents, for additional adventurer bonus points. I've heard this is what people do when they have kids. This trip is a little different from our previous baby moon, which we spent in Florence. “You must get away before the baby comes” people said, “spend some time together and enjoy your freedom while you have it [guffaw]”. Cue panic holiday booking and a healthy servings of compulsory grown up fun. It was a romantic long weekend that, despite the standard pregnancy ailments, seemed a little more glamorous than our current vacation. But at least we are now well versed in not having any grown up fun, and the prospect of glamour has long expired, so our expectations have adjusted accordingly. However, we have had a lovely time. We've paddled and built sand castles and played in parks and visited farms and zoos and other child friendly establishments, much as we would when at home and not working. But that's just what we need right now. We don't need baking hot sun or exotic cuisine or even a great deal of culture. Of course the Isle of Wight is oozing with culture, they have a model village for pity’s sake, but you know what I mean. I have suddenly felt a lot less mobile in the past week or so, the baby descending down into my pelvis and burrowing into my bladder like an over eager mole. This has made walking pretty uncomfortable and presented me with the need to urinate every tenth step. So a bit of casual pottering is just about all I'm up for. And toddlers are all about casual pottering, so actually this has worked really well. For our son, the boat was an enormous adventure and he has loved spending time on the beach, swimming and exploring rock pools, being told by his Dad that seaweed is actually dragon snot — a sure-fire way to make the beach an even more exciting place. It's also been lovely to spend time with my parents and I've been really grateful for the help and support, which has definitely balanced out their quirks: "Shall I freeze all the bread?" "No mum, we're only here for a week, we will have eaten it in two days and I don't think a nuclear attack is on the cards. The bread does not need freezing. Nor does the cheese.” FFS. As we've set the travel bar so high already, we're undoubtedly going to become even more feeble once baby number two arrives. But hey, I'm struggling to care right now. My happiest memories as a child are of times with family, playing outdoors and enjoying long summer days. It didn't matter if we were in Norfolk or Los Angeles, so I'm going to take some pressure off myself and travel in whatever way creates the least stress and the least hassle so that we can enjoy the time together and make family memories. I'm excited about our next big adventure where we can make memories as a four instead of as a three. Maybe in the Cotswolds?!