Travel with Baby

Charlie and his cousin, Nate

This weekend we went to Long Island to visit with Erik's family.  It was a good trip and Charlie was so well behaved and happy to spend time with his family.  Since Charlie's new bedtime had only been implemented a week earlier we were pretty serious about maintaining his routine at Erik's parent's house even though he would be sharing our upstairs room with us.  "Oh whatever will we do?", we wondered.  We had forgotten the monitor and Charlie is pretty, shall we say, "sensitive" to sound.  The mister fiddled with the TV as we approached Charlie's 9 PM bedtime, but couldn't get it working.  Oh well, we figured, we'll just play word scramble against each other on our phones, nothing different than a typical wild night at home.  We put Charlie in his pack and play and laid back on the bed for a few minutes and I promptly fell asleep.  Like within three seconds.  The mister turned off the light, and that was it.  Asleep at 9:30 on a Saturday night.  I can't say I feel bad about it (and honestly I can't really say that our Saturday nights were that much craaazier a year ago.)  Besides Charlie and I have our own party every night around 3 AM so that's pretty darn cool.


We seem to be getting back in our routine of traveling around on the weekends, planning vacations and long weekends away.  Like many new parents, our goal has been to maintain some semblance of our former lifestyle, keep going places and keep traveling.  We want to be the kind of parents that aren't afraid to pack up baby and bring him along!  But the truth is, I do get kind of scared.  I think the key to being those kinds of parents is to be flexible and  just kind of roll with it, just chill the f out, you know.  That isn't necessarily my personality right now, but I'm really trying to get there.  Next weekend we are headed to Pittsburgh for my sister Micky's graduation and yes, there is pretty elaborate agenda.  Am I worried that Charlie might cry the whole way to Pittsburgh?  Am I worried he might not make it through the graduation? Am I worried that I might expose my breast to a lot of people to whom I don't want to expose my breast?  Am I worried that Erik and I will miss out on Saturday night's keg party?  Yeah, I worry about some of these things, but I really don't want to be the parents that stay home out of fear.  All of the above might happen and it could still be lots of fun but only if we roll with it.  Only if the sound of Charlie's tears don't bring on my own tears and the onset of full-on panic.  When it comes to traveling with a baby, the mister is much better at rolling with it than I am and I've noticed that his positive attitude tends to lead to positive outcomes, so I'm really trying to learn from him and other chill people I know.  But don't think I won't be stocking up on a hearty list of travel tips before Charlie's first plane ride this summer.  You can never be too prepared!  


xo,
C