Parenthood: A New Type of Adventure

“Paris? I’d love to!” were my exact words. Then, I remembered that we have a four month old. Right. Maybe I should think this through a little more.

When my husband came home over lunch a couple of days before my thirtieth birthday, I knew he had a surprise planned. There was a glint in his eye when he asked if I would like to go away for my birthday. Brad said he wanted to surprise me, but figured that I needed to plan a little more since we now have a baby and we would be taking her along. Note: this was two days before we were to leave for Paris, so the word “planning” is used loosely here. I immediately said “yes!” and gave him a big hug. He ushered me to the computer and showed me the Web site of the cute hotel where we would be staying and explained that it would be an easy five-hour drive from our home in Switzerland.

Perfect! Well, not ideal, but I could make this work, right? I am resourceful and flexible and, come on; this is Paris we are talking about. But, the more I thought about it, the more stressed out I became. Our daughter was just getting over a cold and we were scheduled to fly to the U.S. the following week. I was worried that running around Paris was not the best thing for any of us. What would we even do in Paris with an infant in tow? Could we go to the galleries and museums that we love? Dine at quaint out-of-the-way venues? I imagined squeezing our stroller between tables, bumping into chairs, and generally ticking off the French with our “enormous American stroller.”

After several emails to my “mom friends” and a lot of worrying, I decided that it was just not a good idea. It was classic—the collision of my old life and my new life—and it really threw me. In my old life, Brad and I took spontaneous vacations and long weekends, jumping on trains all over Europe and rarely having a hotel reservation waiting at the other end. We lived abroad for two years and traveled like fools, maintaining a break-neck pace when we were visiting a new locale. It was amazing. We made some of our best memories on these random adventures around Europe.