The first two weeks of my new job had me away from home, first in Atlanta and then up in Boston. I have family in both areas, so I made sure to visit with them while I was in town.
First, in Atlanta I got to visit with my father’s brother, my Uncle Paul, and his family. With them in Georgia and my family up in Maine, we never saw much of each other, but bringing our lives closer together is one thing we can thank social media for. Furthermore, my cousin just had a baby! So I was eager to share some new mother kinship time. But first, I had to enjoy the moment where I was attending an IBM conference and meeting up with my uncle who spent a nice chunk of his career at IBM.
Over lunch I got to meet my cousin’s little one and catch up with my uncle, aunt, and cousin. I had a nice time and I’m really glad they were able to make the trek down to see me, especially with a newborn in tow!
My next trip took me to Boston for my first work trip where Adam and our au pair joined me. It’s a configuration I’m not likely to repeat often, conferences are hectic and extremely long, a simple eight hour day won’t do. In order to handle care for Adam, I not only had our au pair cover the day, but MJ’s best friend come over a couple nights to look after him while I went to evening events, and one evening was covered by my mother and sister who came down from Maine. That day also gave my sister and nephew an opportunity to finally meet little Adam! And I was able to carve out a couple hours before the conference to go to the New England Aquarium with them.
At the aquarium I discovered that Adam seems to like turtles. He was pretty memorized when he saw the sea turtles passing by in the large tank. His grandma bought him a turtle stuffed toy on our way out at the gift shop to remember the occasion. Getting some quality time with my nephew was a lot of fun, and I’m glad he was able to spend time holding and helping with his new little cousin.
Naturally they were wonderful with little Adam while I went off to attend evening keynotes and meet up with some people before returning to my room for the night. And Adam slept very well during the trip, only getting up once over night to eat, and pretty much sticking to California time, which allowed me to have a little time with him before I went to bed, and then could depart my room in the morning for the conference before he woke up. It was an exhausting week, especially once travel across the country with a connection was figured in, but it was totally worth it to squeeze in as much as we could.