Wicked Boston
Lucia and I accompanied Andrew on a business trip to Boston from Tuesday through Friday last week, and it is with horror that I realize it has gotten quite difficult to stay in a hotel with our baby. Though hotels for the first few months of Lucia’s life seemed to have a magical effect on her—for example, our nursing problems early on were resolved on a trip to San Francisco—they now seem to be places fraught with problems.
We stayed at the Colonnade in Back Bay, and the loveliness of the hotel did not, unfortunately, guarantee a lovely stay. The first problem is the sheer amount of stuff that traveling with Lucia currently requires: travel booster seat (with tray); food, since she’d not yet eating a wide enough variety of “people food” to allow her to just eat from our plates; bibs and cloths and clothes; toys and books; stroller; Bjorn; and the infernal pump. Thank goodness we were traveling by car. The second problem is that feeding Lucia in a hotel room—preparing food, storing food among beer and champagne in the mini bar, picking up flung food, washing dishes in the hotel sink—is simply no longer practical. It was easy when she was just breastfeeding, and I imagine it will be easy once again once she’d old enough to just eat what we’re eating (a point we’re getting to, slowly). But for now, it is a real pain.
The next and more vexing problem is that Lucia will not sleep if she knows we are in the room. Putting her down and trying to read quietly in bed results in nothing but her standing up in her crib, staring at us and screaming; so I spent most of this week sitting on the floor of the bathroom while she napped. At night, after feeding her and putting her in her crib, I had to take a walk or go down to the lobby; she would not settle if I was there. But really, why did I bother? She woke up so often during our nights in Boston that we were lucky to get two or three hours of sleep at a time. She refused to go back to sleep unless I nursed her, and even that sometimes failed to work. One night, she was up from one to three a.m. The next night, she was up for good at 4:30 a.m. We tried to put her in our bed; this only worked her up more, as she crawled from one of us to the other, swatting Andrew’s face, pulling my hair, sitting up and clapping, trying to pitch herself off the side of the bed. We were zombies.
Andrew was in Boston to work, and, unfortunately, these sleep troubles overshadowed what I’d hoped would be a nice few days for me to explore the city. I did get to have lunch with an old friend, and walk around the Public Gardens, and have a nice dinner with Andrew at the Parish Café, and have a quick swim with Lucia on the hotel’s rooftop pool—but I was very happy when Friday rolled around and it was time for us to pack up and head out.
One of these days, I’m going to have a chance to really see Boston. This week was not that time.
We stayed at the Colonnade in Back Bay, and the loveliness of the hotel did not, unfortunately, guarantee a lovely stay. The first problem is the sheer amount of stuff that traveling with Lucia currently requires: travel booster seat (with tray); food, since she’d not yet eating a wide enough variety of “people food” to allow her to just eat from our plates; bibs and cloths and clothes; toys and books; stroller; Bjorn; and the infernal pump. Thank goodness we were traveling by car. The second problem is that feeding Lucia in a hotel room—preparing food, storing food among beer and champagne in the mini bar, picking up flung food, washing dishes in the hotel sink—is simply no longer practical. It was easy when she was just breastfeeding, and I imagine it will be easy once again once she’d old enough to just eat what we’re eating (a point we’re getting to, slowly). But for now, it is a real pain.
The next and more vexing problem is that Lucia will not sleep if she knows we are in the room. Putting her down and trying to read quietly in bed results in nothing but her standing up in her crib, staring at us and screaming; so I spent most of this week sitting on the floor of the bathroom while she napped. At night, after feeding her and putting her in her crib, I had to take a walk or go down to the lobby; she would not settle if I was there. But really, why did I bother? She woke up so often during our nights in Boston that we were lucky to get two or three hours of sleep at a time. She refused to go back to sleep unless I nursed her, and even that sometimes failed to work. One night, she was up from one to three a.m. The next night, she was up for good at 4:30 a.m. We tried to put her in our bed; this only worked her up more, as she crawled from one of us to the other, swatting Andrew’s face, pulling my hair, sitting up and clapping, trying to pitch herself off the side of the bed. We were zombies.
Andrew was in Boston to work, and, unfortunately, these sleep troubles overshadowed what I’d hoped would be a nice few days for me to explore the city. I did get to have lunch with an old friend, and walk around the Public Gardens, and have a nice dinner with Andrew at the Parish Café, and have a quick swim with Lucia on the hotel’s rooftop pool—but I was very happy when Friday rolled around and it was time for us to pack up and head out.
One of these days, I’m going to have a chance to really see Boston. This week was not that time.
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