Wouldn't it be nice

Propter doc at post doc ergo propter doc has got me totally jonesing for a vacation!

I haven't been on a proper vacation in a long time - at least a few years anyway, and it was tagged onto the end of a trip to europe where I ran a marathon. So I was pretty darned sore afterwards - but it was still lovely. It was a backpacking adventure, so it wasn't all that relaxing per se, but it was still a break from my regular life as a grad student (back then). Mr. Daybyday went with me too.

But that was probably the first and only vacation that we've had together. And I haven't even been sent to any exotic conferences since - they've all been spectacularly non-vacationy.

And, AND! I have to admit that Mr. Daybyday and I never even had a honeymoon. I defended my PhD 10 days after our wedding, and within a week of that we were moving to new postdoc location. Looking back, that probably wasn't the best way to plan things - but we were eager to get settled in our new location - and it would have been hard to relax on a honeymoon knowing we still had the stress of moving to come back to. So we thought we'd put it off and go later in the year.

Yeah, that didn't happen.

Now I'm entering my second trimester, and seriously wondering if it'll be years before I can have a proper vacation again? Does anyone have experience taking little ones on vacation with them? Or any advice?

In other news - the therapist/counsellor I've been seeing to help me sort out my career plans said that I had a breakthrough! This week I told her I had come to the conclusion that I'm not ready to give up being a scientist (that was the breakthrough, in case you're wondering). I had just gotten myself stuck into a mode of thinking that didn't allow me to define scientist as anything beyond professor (to be clear, I know that graduate students and postdocs also qualify as scientists, but I was looking further ahead in my career). But there are all sorts of other scientists who have careers as scientists, without being professors. And that's what I think I might do next, after this postdoc. There are some government research labs back home that look promising - and in their "why work for us" blurb, they actually have a section on "work/life balance"!! Incredible!