Bright lights, cling clang of slot machines, hooting and hollering of drunk people winning at the tables are all sounds that I welcome when I am in Vegas.......normally, but when I was pregnant and then when I was with child those were all danger zones. Las Vegas was me and my husband's prime local vacation spot every September (for his birthday) and then in February, but it is just no place for a pregnant woman or children. But after 2 years of waiting, we decided to go for my husbands 34th birthday. How would we pull this off with a 14 month old.....we did!
The first must, was the lodging. There was no way I was bringing my precious baby through a smoke-filled casino so we stayed off the strip. Secondly, we need space and a refrigerator and a functioning kitchen so I can stick to feeding him his healthy food. We stayed at the Hilton Grand Vacations at the Convention Center. It was pretty nice and the room was huge. It was only $76 per night. Now that is of course with the amazing deals that my husband finds. Finally, we needed a nanny and since I put my millions of dollars into my yacht and mansion, we brought grandparents.
The ride down to Vegas was spectacular. My son actually stayed up for the whole 4.5 hour drive so thank goodness mommy was prepared. The key was "The Toy Bag" and by the toy bag, I mean a bag in which I put several of his toys. The trick is variety rather than quantity. I brought different types of toys as so many children's toys are similar. The next thing was I would only bring one out at a time so each one would distract him and catch his attention because it would be something new. It was absolutely exhausting since I had worked that day. As we approached Vegas I was excited because I knew he would go to sleep immediately. We checked in and found out that their "crib" was actually a play pen. Now some people may have expected this, but when I see the word "crib" I expect a crib. Fortunately, my germophobia, had me prepared and I brought his crib sheet. We also ended up putting some extra sheets in the bottom because it is not really padded. Now fast forward to bed time. I was so ready to get hopping to the casinos so we put him down and the screaming began. What, you mean he didn't fall right to sleep in this new foreign place and foreign bed. Yes, I wasn't thinking. Well after the 30 minutes that felt like 2 hour, he went to sleep and mommy and daddy left for the casinos.
O.k., I must rewind back to the set up. When we arrived in the room, we put the food we brought away prepped his bottle, and the most important thing, set the room up for a tot to roam around. First there's the matter of the outlets. We brought the plug protector and thank goodness we brought the whole container because we learned, "hotels" have a massive amount of outlets. Next, we dealt with the corners. The coffee table was below his head so we just had to keep an eye on him, but there was the matter of the dining table. We just set the chairs up so they blocked the corners and the other side was pushed up against the wall. We obviously could not install the safety locks on cabinets in drawers so you just have to keep doors closed and never let them any where out of sight. Finally, I brought disinfectant wipes to wipe off all surfaces he would touch including the bathtub.
The second day, Boogie had already acclimated to his environment. He took his naps right on schedule and because of the previous day's events, the naps were long. It was awesome. Although, I was a zombie only having 3 hours of sleep (the price of fun), I went grocery shopping for fruit and his lunch and dinner. We only went out once during the day and during his naps so the grands could have their fun. The second day we took him to the pool which was awesome and he loved it and the Vegas sun was so merciful on us so we really were able to enjoy it. We made it an early night to recover for the lack of sleep.
The third day, we took him the the Lied Children't Museum and he loved it. We enjoyed ourselves as well. They have something for all ages, even a 14 month old which is why they charge children starting at 1 year of age. We had the grands put him to bed that night so we could get out early and have dinner before Ka.
All in all it was such a wonderful trip. To go out and have Vegas fun and then come back to this gorgeous, precious little being. I think you have to remember, you can drink as much or party as hard because you will have to go back to being a parent in a couple of hours. It was totally worth it. We plan to do it again and probably not change a thing. Well we actually didn't have a good system to toss his poopie diapers and since we have a Diaper Jeanie, we were forgetful of the powerful stench that can come from such a cute tiny little person. There were multiple times where I thought our suite had a sewage leakage. We ended up sneaking and throwing them outside of the hotel, we're not that cruel. We'll have to work on how to solve this one.
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