There and back with toddler, without packing the house

Before you have a child, you think that having one will of course make traveling a lot harder, but you don’t exactly realize HOW much harder.  I myself thought that all I would have to do is pack a diaper bag full of bottles, extra clothes, diapers, and some other small things.  Sleeping anywhere else would have been easy.  All I would need is a pack and play.  My son would feel completely comfortable being anywhere else, he wouldn’t need to be in the comforts of his own home.  He also would love car rides…don’t all babies and toddlers sleep in cars…the whole way?

I think I realized the day I brought our son home from the hospital that this was not real life, this is not how traveling would be…

I looked around our hospital room and noticed the piles that have gathered.  A boppy, a car seat, diapers, bottles, a breast pump, Vaseline, clothes, blankets, pacifiers, books.  And this was for a 7 lb child who was only in this world for 2 days!  What have we gotten ourselves into?!  The ride home was just as expected, I think he did sleep the whole way, it was a 15 minute ride.  It wasn’t until we started traveling 20 minutes until I realized my dream of pleasant car rides was a fairy tale, at least for this child.

In order to plan an overnight trip in this house it takes 1 large suitcase, a backpack, two diaper bags, a dog, a bag for the dog stuff, and usually extra space in the CR-V for some toys.  It also takes a cranky, grumpy baby who resists most attempt to sleep through the night, or for that matter, fall asleep at all.  Because of this, yesterday, instead of staying the weekend at my parents, an hour and a half away…we did a day trip.  ‘
Sure, it was hectic, but it was amazing how much stress it saved.  I packed a diaper bag and we didn’t have to pack that many toys or any bottles.  Nick was a little impatient on the way home, but in the end he got to spend some time with his grandpa, great grandma, uncle and we didn’t have the extra worry of sleeping out of the house.  This is something that two years ago, I would not dream of doing.  It would have been way too much.  Now it is almost like a typical day in my life.  We got home and couldn’t believe that we were in our house earlier that morning, it felt like we were gone for a week.  But we made the parents happy, had some good food, and don’t have to think of a dreaded overnight for at least another month.  Thank God for that.