This past weekend my husband and I embarked on an epic and perilous journey.

We attempted to take our adorable, but DIFFICULT and temperamental, 15 month old baby girl on a family holiday. To the sea. For a wedding.

I know. We are ridiculously brave. And valiant. Ridiculously.

A brief synopsis:

• Leave a day late due to baby having a temperature on D-Day. Naturally.
• 7 hour trip (8/9 hrs with stops). Trying not to think about the horror.
• Start off journey on a good note. Baby only performs for 50% of the way. Woohoo!
• Arrive at destination. Baby – “Oooh! New furniture to climb! AWESOME! So awesome I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight!” 😀
• Day 1 at beach. Baby – “Oh. My. Word. Water and sand. Water AND sand! WATER AND SAND! I LOVE MY LIFE!” The wedding is going to be a cinch. This child loves the beach 😀
• Parents – “OMG! She’s running straight for the waves on a suicide mission. Repeatedly”
• “She just wont stop. Stop. STOP! STOPPPPPPPP! Why isn’t she afraid like normal babies?”
• “Let’s go back in”. We’re all soaked now. In our clothes. No one expected to actually swim.
• Day 2 – Morning beach wedding ceremony. Baby screamed her face off. Face did not actually come off, probably leading to even more frustration to fuel subsequent rubbing of sand into eyes, leading to even more anger and frustration. We leave early.
• Day spent with Babezilla throwing tantrums and hating life in general. Parents resort to driving around with music really loud until Miss Muffet passes out. Parents just keep driving. Ah. Peace at last.
• Husband draws short straw and ends up staying home with baby while Mom goes to evening wedding reception alone. He deserves a trophy.
• We leave for home the next day (i.e a day early). Baby wails and whines for practically the WHOLE journey home. Pity you can’t drink and drive.
• Home. Boy, that was fun.

Believe it or not, as pear-shaped as the weekend ended up, we still managed to enjoy parts of it. We will attempt this “holiday” stuff again next year. When we have recuperated. And trained. Extensively.