It is so easy to get stuck in a rut when you have a 6-month-old baby because your entire life is beholden to the routine. This many feedings, that many naps, an hour of tummy time, 8-10 diapers a day. Paradoxically, not one of the big things in my life remotely resembles how my life looked just a few months ago: I quit the more predictable of my 2 jobs, committed fully to freelance writing, and moved barns twice in as many months before selling my horse altogether. It's not all bad, but it is sort of a lot to absorb.
Perhaps the worst of all right at the end was the genuinely suffocating inversion smog that fogged the throats, brains, and hearts of every citizen on the Wasatch Front this past week. It was a heavy, translucent monster swallowing up the good nature of our family, and we needed to make a break for it.
So against all odds, despite the vows we've taken to uphold the routine, we piled the tiny family into the car and headed south for the long weekend and a much needed reset.
Around the time I was setting up this photo, I was feeling a lot better.
We just couldn't have asked for a better weekend of clear, warm, sunny winter days. And the baby came along for all of it just fine. On the one hand, we got lucky that Leah is the absolute most easy-going baby ever born, but on the other hand, I think we also just decided we were going and having a good time no matter what, and babies can adapt to that. Moreover, a little forethought means planning drives during natural nap times, thinking through every feeding that day before 8am, and making your home kitchen as portable as possible. Now that we know how successful we can be, I'd like to think we'll be doing this a lot more.
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