First Road Trip

The ominous first road trip is now behind us. I say ominous because the thought of bringing an almost 5 month old on a 10ish hour road trip is filled with uncertainty. What do I need to pack? Will he cry the entire trip? Is it safe to have a baby in a car seat for that long? Will he sleep in a new place? These are just a few of the questions that crossed my mind as we prepared to hit the road.


So where did we go? We visited Grandma and Grandpa Hahm in The Villages, Florida. This was a perfect first trip to make and begin to learn about how to travel with a baby. There were no airports involved and we could pack whatever we wanted. It fell on the lower side of the travel stress spectrum.


We chose to leave in the evening so that we could take advantage of Nathaniel's sleep schedule. This meant we left around 5:30ish. This allowed for us to just have one feeding on the road and hopefully he'd sleep the rest of the way. We decided that one of us should always be sitting in the back seat *just in case* the crankies hit. That way we wouldn't have to pull over unnecessarily. That worked really well, plus if the baby was sleeping you could sleep too. The one thing I learned was how super BuMpY the road was. Wow! I mean you notice it normally, but when you have a little guy that almost wakes up at every bump you REALLY notice it. I would cringe at every bridge since those are the worst. You drop and rise with every one. He never would wake up completely, but it was a restless sleep. It was cute to see his little hands raise into the air and then slowly lower all the while his eyes being shut. It was a sleepy surprise type of look.

 

 

We had a few things prepared to make things easier. We put these things in the backseat and made sure they were readily accessible, which worked since we never had to grab anything from anywhere else Yay. A premeasured bottle that could easily be mixed in a parking lot in the backseat. Diapers and wipes (plus we always parked near a trashcan to dispose of the dirty diaper). PJs for after his last feeding. A few different toys for variety. There were of course a couple of things we learned along the way. Make sure the overhead lighting doesn't switch on when you open the door - this is important on a stop where he is actually sleeping so that you don't wake him up. Open your snack while he is awake (my bag of chips I opened at 1am to keep me awake while I was driving sounded like a 100 people were crinkling paper inside the car)

Once we arrived 4:30amish we weren't sure if Nate would go back to sleep or be ready for the day. Luckily for us he chose to fall back asleep. This was especially helpful since Kevin and I drove those late hours. We were pretty well rested by the morning and it made for a better first day of the visit. We had brought his pack and play and he didn't seem to care that he was in a different room. He slept perfect the whole time we were there. Napping on the other hand was a bit of a mess. He has been consistently napping, well *cat napping* between feedings. It is always hard regardless if we are the visitors or someone is visiting us (even on the weekends when Kevin is home) since we go do stuff. This means he is up more than normal and doesn't quite get his routine amount of napping. This makes for a cranky baby here and there, but overall he did pretty good with that too. He is generally in a good mood.

Nathaniel seemed to really enjoy being out in the fresh air in the lanai. He also enjoyed the stroller ride around the neighborhood in the nice FL sun. One funny thing was at church. Nate was sleeping when we headed in to church. He continued sleeping until the organ played. The first time the organ played he sort of wiggled so I thought maybe it is ok and he'll sleep through it. NOPE, by the next time he was wide eyed and wondering what the heck that loud noise was that kept playing. We have a piano at our church so it isn't quite the same volume. Then he started to babble a bit so Kevin walked him around in the back- of course everyone afterwards thought his babbling was cute.

This brings me to a Nate Note:

Nate Note - He is definitly trying out new sounds. His new favorite thing is to just make an, 'aaaahhhhhhaaahhhhaaaahhhh' sound. It is low and kind of vibratey We think he likes how it feels. Me and Kevin of course always quote Jim Carrey and say, 'Want to hear the most annoying noise?'....'aaaaaahhhhhaaahhhaaahh' Sometimes he makes this sound so long that he puts himself to sleep. Sometimes this sound is punctuated with the raspberries. I did see in some book that this sound is called 'razzing' haha. I guess he is razzing. We especially like when he razzes while he is eating. I figure rice cereal spit in my face is good for my complexion. There is an occasional baby squeal too. He really cracks himself up when he does that. It is all quite cute.

Ok, back to the trip. There isn't too much more other than Nate had a great time being held and spoiled by his grandma Hahm and and seeing the sites with grandpa Hahm. I especially liked taking the stroller to the lake right by the starbucks :) Their house and neighborhood was really nice. TONS of golf courses. The trip home went pretty good too. Overall, I'd say it was a great first road trip. No crying for 20 hours in a car is something to celebrate! Oh yay and I had one of the best laughs I have had in a really long time. That happened while Kevin's dad gave us his password to use the wireless.... he mentioned it was like 25 characters and hard because somehow it got coded differently than he had put it in there (some sort of computer language translation thing I don't know)... anyway I thought he was exaggerating, but after the 12th letter/# I started to giggle and then Kevin couldn't hold back and we were both laughing so hard that I messed the whole thing up and had to start over... (echo, bravo, 2, tango, 8, echo... on and on for 25 characters) it was hilarious...

I can't wait until we take another trip and I start learning more about the craziness of travelling with a little guy. It is exciting. It sure does change how you do a lot of things, but it is fun to kind of figure out and plan - like a logic puzzle. Maybe soon we will tackle the airport (yikes).

I'll post some pictures soon. I need to download from my phone and camera. FYI - I added some new pictures to the shutterfly website.