Traveling Lightly – A Thing of the Past
February 20, 2009 by Lisa Beth
Gone are the days of throwing a few things in a bag and taking off for the weekend. Had we forgotten how hard it can be to travel with an infant? The baby doesn’t cause any real problems, they just come with so much stuff! It’s amazing to me that a tiny 8 pound person can travel with about 100 pounds of baggage.
Last night Chris and I threw around the idea of traveling to Fargo for the weekend. We thought it would be great fun to see some family and friends, eat at some of our favorite restaurants, and shop (this was my idea). One of Chris’s friends also invited us out to do some ice fishing at his home, and this of course enticed Chris. He has been wanting to get Wyatt out to try a little ice fishing this winter, we have just never had the time or opportunity to do so. I was skeptical at first, after all, Brooklyn is only 3 weeks old. But then Chris had Wyatt saying “I wanna go ice fishing mommy” and batting his long eyelashes. So I caved.
Then we sat down to discuss our “game plan”.
Wyatt will need:
Three days worth of clothes
Diapers (yes we still have to haul these around, but that is another whole topic of discussion)
Toothbrush
Favorite blanket
Spider Man Mac-N-Cheese (not all families keep 10 boxes on hand, so we bring our own)
Portable DVD player for the car ride
Movies to watch on the car ride
Hmmm…. That doesn’t seem so bad.
Brooklyn will need:
Three days worth of clothes (actually more like 8 since she spits up quite a lot)
Bottles/liners/formula
Breast pump
Milk containers
Pack-n-play to sleep in
Bouncy chair so I have somewhere to set her down
Diapers, lots and lots of diapers
Wipes
Blankets (multiple-again the spitting up is a big issue)
Is there room yet for the rest us us? Perhaps. . .
The dogs need:
2 kennels
Food
Sophie’s pills
Leashes
Chris and I need:
Three days worth of clothes
Toiletries
Medications (yup – I’m still on all my fabulous supplements for breast feeding, plus a bunch of vitamins)
Ice auger
Wait a minute, Ice auger? No way that will fit in the car after all that other crap!
I could go on and on, but the fact of the matter is that logistically, this will not all fit into either of our cars in one trip. After much discussion, we decided that if talking about leaving town made us this exhausted, imagine what actually leaving would do! We threw in the towel and went to bed. And I know I rested well last night knowing that the only thing I had to do today was get Wyatt a haircut. So, sorry to all of our Fargo friends and family, we’ll come to visit soon, we’re just not quite ready yet.
On one of our early car trips with a 1 year old Wyatt
Laura on Fri, 20th Feb 2009 4:28 pm
Oh my. This makes me really excited to take a 3 hour car trip with my newborn to one of my best friend’s wedding in June. Although we won’t have an ice auger or a toddler, so maybe it will all go very smoothly.