In hindsight, yes, it would have made more sense to stick to one state – one coast, at least – instead of hopping around from California to New Jersey to New York to South Carolina to Massachusetts then back to New Jersey like Bruce Springsteen on tour. It would have made more sense to hunker down in one quiet place, check out the sights, visit a park or two – then toss a few milk bottles into the crib, turn out the lights and head out to the nightlife.
But as it turns out, we’re actually responsible parents, not addle-minded adolescents itching to dump our load. So we babysat. And sat. And sat. We joked that this trip was basically a vacation for ya-ya, not for us. By the end of our stay, that joke had lost most of its wry luster.
Our trip started in California. We knew there would be trouble when Isobel refused to sleep at her regular bedtime. Sure, there was some jetlag. But jumping up and down on the bed at 3 a.m.? This had to stop. Eventually we would just pass out and hope she got the message.
Fortunately, there’s lots to do in the US to entertain an excited toddler. Museums, for instance. When you take a child under the age of two to a museum, you quickly realize you’re going be taking the "baby tour," not the parent tour. This means stopping to stare at a pile of mastodon bones for, like, ever, while your daughter regales strangers with the repeated observation, "Elephant! Elephant!" Forget about trying to hold her attention with the Mummy exhibit. She’s not interested in what you’re interested in. And God forbid she should ask to get out of the baby stroller. Then you’ll be chasing a baby through the Museum of Natural History while she placidly mows into strangers with the stroller. Efforts to remove the stroller from her grip will result in steady, unrelenting wailing. Museum personnel will begin to eye you sideways like you’ve trekked dog crap into their precious building. It’s really not a lot of fun.
Meltdowns were not a daily occurrence, but they were memorable enough for us to do practically anything to avoid them. Walking on eggshells became our daily strategy, especially in public. Isobel is capable of such fierce screaming fits (and really, she’s usually such a sweet-tempered little girl) that we began to feel like the parents in that Twilight Zone episode, the one where the little kid has the power to make the whole town vanish just by thinking about it, so everyone has to treat the kid really, really carefully.
Then there was the milk crisis. If your child is used to a certain baby formula, and then that baby formula runs out mid-vacation and you wrongly assume that that baby formula will be widely available in the States – well, you could be in for a lot of trouble. And then, if you’re the type of parent who tries out a wide range of different baby formulas as a replacement, but none of them works, you shouldn’t be judged too harshly if you decide to take your relatives’ advice and substitute chocolate milk instead.
Yes, we got our child hooked on chocolate milk.
It was not pretty.
Now, at bedtime, instead of accepting the standard milk bottle, we heard a tentative but firm request emanating from the crib: "Chocolate milk." We vowed to put Isobel through rehab once we returned to Manila.
Oh, the horrors of being on the road with a toddler!
To be fair, though, there were moments of joy and discovery with our daughter, things that we wouldn’t trade for the world: feeding ducks at the Boston Common; visiting Gus, the neurotic polar bear, at the Central Park Zoo; watching Isobel gain confidence with other kids on the many playgrounds of America; seeing her become so comfortable with her US grandparents that she took to streaking around the house naked at bathtime.
These were good moments. And in retrospect, thank God we took a camera along to capture them all, because we barely had the energy to enjoy them during the trip. It was almost worth it to miss all the latest Broadway shows, music concerts, movies, shopping opportunities and even TV every night. Almost. But next time we go to the States with Isobel, I have a feeling she’ll probably be old enough to wear braces and carry an iPod.