First Road Trip

Last weekend we headed to Virginia to introduce Baby Raymond to his great grandmother, Clarene Vickery (aka Meemaw) and see Morgan's family. We had great expectations of calling all our friends and family in the area to see the baby and have an open house of sorts at Morgan's parent’s house. However, a strange twist early in the week made it very had to make plans as well as having to make some big parent choices early on. Morgan's dad called on Tuesday to advise that he might have the shingles – which would mean that he could transfer the virus to Raymond and give the little guy chicken pox. At 5 chicken pox is no big deal but at 5 weeks having chicken pox can be very dangerous! Ray was supposed to get his test back on Thursday to let us know the results. We scheduled the trip for this weekend because Morgan had a conference to attend in DC on Friday so there was NO canceling the trip – instead we just made a backup plan to stay with Meemaw. Thank goodness we had another place to go as late Friday we finally learned that Ray did in fact have the shingles and could not touch or be around Raymond for the weekend.




I have been going to Vienna to see Morgan’s family for 7 years and have never stayed at Meemaw’s house before. In addition to traveling with the baby for the first time I was also going into a totally new environment. I have to admit I got a little nervous the first night when Morgan left to go see his dad and I was there to set everything up alone. However, I was able to set up Raymond travel bed (which is really more like a tent) and get comfortable on my own.



Even as Ray having shingles and changing plans was disappointing, it also turned into a wonderful surprise weekend with Meemaw getting to spend so much more time with Raymond than if we had just come over for dinner or to visit in the afternoon. Instead, she really got to know the baby and play with him, which was just perfect. Similarly we all got to spend more time with Uncle Steve which was awesome. I really enjoyed getting to chat with him more than I usually do.



Meredith Vickery was able to briefly meet Raymond on Friday when she was at Parkwood. Granny Annie and Uncle Phil came over to play with the baby and Meemaw extended awesome hospitality. Agnes came over on Saturday for lunch to meet Raymond and catch up with us, which was also a great and different kind of visit than we usually get to have with Agnes. Amanda Morgan also came over to meet her new cousin. All and all we had a great weekend. I am now very glad that we didn’t try to see more people as I was totally wiped out and so was Raymond. We now know to keep visits short and not have too many people.



On Sunday we went out to Four Sun’s Farm (where Morgan and I were married) to play. For some reason I felt like I was supposed to stay inside with the baby and did not take advantage of getting him as much fresh spring air as I should have – I guess it seemed a little too chilly. I regret that decision now as not getting outside as much I wanted put me in a bad mood the whole way home. We did enjoy the spring air the best we could and feasted on great munchies with Ann, Ray and Phil while the dogs ran around to play.



Raymond did show signs of being a little bit fussy in his new environments but generally he was a dream. I think he just got fussy because we messed up his sleep pattern (it would be wrong for me to call it a schedule as I haven’t even come close to setting a schedule up). Today is our second day at home and it feels like we are almost recovered - - -