Stepping Into Motherhood: The Real Truth of Vacationing with Two and a Baby

When each of the girls were a baby we didn't do a family vacation. Our vacation for those summers were one two week trip to Mo and Pa to see our families. At least once there we had reinforcements or could hand the baby off for maybe an evening vacation of just us two. But baby #3 we're experts with this by now, right? Not so much.

Honestly if we could go back and decide again I think we would have made a different decision for this week. We didn't even know where to go a month ago. We looked at Outer Banks, Cape May New Jersey, even up in Maine, and last Hilton Head Island. Maine and Hilton Head were the farthest away but with Maine I figured we'd want to go out and about everyday exploring and thought it'd be too difficult with hauling a baby around. The beach sounded good because we could spend our days laying on the beach but our concern with Cape May was it's been so cold we thought the water wouldn't be very warm so we decided on going south. We weren't fast enough to catch the groupon deal for OBX so we went with Hilton Head.

The water was definitely warm. I've been in the ocean by us in July and it's freezing so the warm water was a plus. However besides checking out Boone Hall's plantation in Charleston before we even got to Hilton Head we didn't do anything while we were down there. All our other beach trips we've done mini golfing and go carts, dolphin cruise, and checked out lighthouses and aquariums. Honestly for what we did we could have saved ourselves the ten hour drive and $200 worth of gas and went to a closer beach.

We stayed in a waterfront condo, which this was our third year vacationing in a condo after our stay in a dingy Myrtle Beach hotel four years ago, so as always the condos are so much better to stay in for us than hotels now that there are five of us. We always have either a second bedroom for the girls to sleep in or those hallway bunk beds even though for two of the nights this time the girls opted to sleep on the pullout couch instead of the bunk beds. The other nice thing about the condos is we always buy groceries and limit our eating out to one time a day. But whether it was the grocery bill for three days or the meals out, man is it expensive to feed all of us!

We were on the third floor this time which normally would be great because the higher you are the better views of the ocean; however, there was no elevator! So not only did we have to haul all our luggage up there and the groceries, but the baby whether it was in that heavy carseat carrier or one of the times I had to carry him from the third floor all the way down to the beach which was still quite a walk once we left our building. There is a shit ton of stuff to haul down to the beach when you have three kids! We made the girls carry their own weight but my youngest daughter wanted to whine that everything was too heavy so she was told if she wanted it carry it; otherwise leave it. She sucked it up and carried what she wanted. We bought this tent thing to shade the baby, and yes I know to keep a two month old out of the sun but I think we burnt the poor kid anyway. I had given him to my husband to feed him a bottle while I ran back up to the condo with the girls to pack up a picnic lunch. I guess the tide came in and somehow by himself with the baby he had to pull everything back up on the beach so by the time he sat back down to feed him I guess he was exposed to the sun too long.

Between the constant hauling of everything everywhere and the exhaustion of the needs of three we kept saying we were going to give ourselves a day of drinking and lounging all day. Do you know what that drinking all day consisted of? Two cocktails and usually passed out by midnight with anywhere from 1-3 kids between us. One night I had a screaming hungry baby, a four year old asking over and over again for someone to get her chocolate milk, and the oldest hollering from the bathroom asking for help to get all the sand out of her hair. It's exhausting. Seriously considering our first no kids vacation next year sometime.

Vacation or not there s still a screaming baby and fighting girls. And they all want something as soon as you sit down to relax so in all honesty we've had better vacations. Hilton Head also wasn't what I expected. Unlike some of the other beaches I've gone to there was no main strip to drive down where the beach/ocean was off to one side. If you didn't travel back to a resort area on the water you wouldn't even know it was a beach area. It also didn't have the usual tourists stuff like the gazillion souvenir shops or an area full of mini golf and go carts. It's known as an area for golfers so maybe if we were down there with my dad and brothers in law it would have been more fitting as my husband and them like to golf. I've been to beaches with and without a boardwalk. My husband could probably take or leave the boardwalk, but I kind of like the beach boardwalk scene. Makes me feel more like I'm at the beach.

It probably won't make the Glenn most memorable vacation list (those I would say would be Mexico, California, Outer Banks, Nashville, Disney, and Gulf Shores, Alabama) but it was still nice to spend quality time together. Whereas my girls usually play more in the sand rather than the water they were in the water almost nonstop. As I said though the water was fabulous.

We pack it up and try this again in a month with our trip out to MO to see family. We were contemplating a tourist stop in St. Louis and Chicago, but might be rethinking that now.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the week though. There is always something calming and peaceful about the beach even when it's more work than you anticipated.

Me and my crew