Traveling With Two

I've been meaning to write a post about traveling with two kiddies since we made the trek to Charlotte for Jason & Rebecca's wedding when Craft was a little over a month old, but I kept forgetting until Sara reminded me this week.  I do not by any means consider myself to be an expert on this matter, but having done it twice now and with quite a few upcoming trips planned, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the subject.  I should note that my advice is specific to car trips.  We have not yet been brave enough to attempt air travel with two, but we flew with Lilly three or four times in her first year of life and I documented some travel tips for air travel with a baby here, if you're interested.  Anyway, in no particular order, here is my advice.  

1. Don't travel.  Just kidding.  But seriously, don't do it.                                                                
2. If you are brave (or have no choice) and decide to ignore #1, my first piece of advice is to make a list of what you'll need to take.  Even if you aren't a list person, I think it's beneficial to make a list at least for the kid-related items that you need to take with you.  I typically start my list about a week before our departure date and list out everything I'll need to take from home.  The original list is always huge, and I always think that there's no possible way that I've forgotten anything, but it never fails that I'll remember something here or there that I need to take that isn't on the list and I can just add it so I don't forget.  I am a serial over-packer, so having a list helps me to stay focused.  Additionally, I can mark things off as I pack them and then do a read-through right before we leave to make sure I haven't missed anything.                                                              
3. Start packing well in advance.  And by "well in advance" I mean like a week before (not a joke).  For our Easter trip this past weekend, I was behind on laundry and procrastinated on packing and it was a nightmare.  On the morning of our departure, Lilly's school was nice enough to let me bring her in even though it wasn't a school day for her (she only goes MWF) and Craft had a doctor appointment which of course took forever because they were running behind even though we were 15 minutes early.  So by the time C and I got home I had about 45 minutes to pack (while taking care of him because he decided he wasn't sleepy) before we had to get back in the car to go pick up L, and then I had to finish packing while taking care of both babes when we got home.  To say it was stressful would be an understatement - thank God Dan was able to scoot home a little early to help and load the car.  What I should have done was packed what I could have for the kids in the days leading up to our departure and packed all of the food/snacks as well as myself and Dan's stuff in advance or at a minimum the night before we left, but sleeping seemed like a better idea at the time.  Never again.                                                                              

   

   This is what our car looked like last week - my husband has surely perfected the art of packing the Daddy-mobile.  Granted, we were gone for 6 days, but still.

4. Plan your departure time around feedings and try to coordinate so that at least one child will be sleeping for the majority of the trip.  Depending on age, this may be trickier than it sounds.  Lillian, for example, will not sleep in the car 95% of the time, even if it's during naptime or way past her bedtime.  With that said, I prefer to travel either right after breakfast or get L up a little early from her nap and travel between nap time and dinner.  This past trip, we left on a week day and Dan had to work for a portion of the day so we did not leave until it was time for Lilly's nap.  Luckily, it worked out this time because she had gone to school that morning and was worn out, so we just didn't put the iPad in the case that straps to the seat to let her know we meant business and after she talked to herself and sang every song in her repertoire at the top of her lungs for about 45 minutes, she fell asleep and slept for the remainder of the trip.  It probably also didn't hurt that we told her if she took a good nap she could have a cookie when she woke up.  The first words out of her mouth as soon as her eyes opened, in fact, were, "I had a good sleep.  Can I have a cookie?"  It's double helpful if you can make the whole trip without having to stop to feed the baby.  We have not yet accomplished this, but our Easter trip was a lot better than the previous trip for the wedding when C was still eating every 1.5-2 hours and we had to stop three times, turning a 3-hour trip into 4.5 hours.                                                                                                     
   
   
   
   
   
   

   

   A beautiful sight (and sound!).

                                                                                
5. Borrow anything you can at your destination to minimize the amount you have to take from home.  We are fortunate that my sister lives about 10 minutes from my parents and lets us borrow a lot of Mason's baby items when we're there - think boppy, bouncy seat, play mat, bottle warmer, etc.  Additionally, we bought some things to leave at my parents' house when Lilly was born to make things easier - infant bath tub + towels and accessories, bottle basket and drying rack, etc.  My parents also bought some things when Lilly was born for all of the grandchildren to use - a crib + mattress and bedding, a swing, changing table and pad, etc.  Seriously SO much easier not to have to travel with all of that.

So, that's my two cents on traveling with two.  Craft does not love the car as much as Lilly did, so that has been a challenge at times, but if I can time it right to where he has just eaten and will sleep for a good portion of the trip, it goes pretty well.  If you have any helpful tips that I haven't listed above, for the love please share them!

Happy Hump Day!

Sarah

Weekend Roundup, Labor Day Style

I realized while typing the title of this post that it has been far too long since I've done one of these.  Sunday is normally our day to catch up from the past week and prepare for the upcoming week, and it's so easy to just relax after Lilly goes to bed instead of coming upstairs to type a blog entry.  Perhaps I should convince my husband that I was wrong about the desktop and that we need instead a laptop (I hate it when he's right).  Anyway, I digress, after a post every day last week (first time in a LONG time that has happened for sure), I figured I needed to keep it up.  So, without further ado, our Labor Day Weekend in (mostly) photos.

I had a work event at UNCW on Wednesday night, so on Wednesday morning when Lilly woke up, we packed up the car and headed to the beach.  My in-laws were nice enough to let us stay at their house (thank you!!!), so why not?!  On the car ride to Carolina Beach, Dan drove while I used the wireless card and worked and Lilly watched Elmo on the iPad.  I am not sure what we did before these wonderful inventions, seriously.  I am so thankful for technology (and a flexible job!), because I was able to knock out some work while my daughter was happy and occupied so that we could spend some time on the beach before I had to go to work that evening!

Some friends were vacationing with their families at the same time at a nearby beach, so when we arrived we unpacked the car pretty quickly and then headed to the beach to squeeze in some sunshine before I had to work.  The weather was perfect, but I managed to forget my phone and not take a single photo, ugh.  Here is one that was taken of some of the kids eating ice cream while I was at my event and Dan was on Daddy duty:

How cute are they?!

I took PTO for the rest of the week so that we could play.  On the way home from my work event on Wednesday night, the Krispy Kreme "hot now" sign was on, so obviously that meant I had to get a dozen...I mean it really wasn't even a choice.  I won't tell you how many I ate on the car ride back to my in-laws house (but you'll know where the pounds came from if I've gained 10 at my next doctor visit, oy!), but I knew that they would be a nice surprise for Lilly the next morning.  Homegirl LOVES some donuts.  

YUM!

After breakfast on Thursday, we loaded up and headed back to the beach for the morning.  This time, Dan was able to get a few good photos before his phone crapped out (ugh, when is the new iPHone coming out?!):

We had a great time and can't wait to go back to the beach at the end of the month for Eaker Family Vacation!

After lunch, we headed to Concord to hang out with Dan's brother and his family for the weekend.  We had a blast!  These four kids are crazy together, and it's hard to get good photos because they are all constantly moving.  Luckily, I was able to get a few.

Thursday night snuggles with Erica

Popsicles!!!

Going "fishing" at the nearby creek

The girls riding in their chariot to the fishing hole

Fishing!

Lilly was much more interested in "swimming" (aka getting wet and filthy) than fishing

Saturday evening bike ride with Daddy (and then Mommy)

First time on the potty!  Aunt Andrea let us try hers out.  Nothing happened, but she liked sitting on it to read a book.  Pretty sure she peed as soon as she got in the tub, but whatever. 

Saturday night movie "Finding Nemo"

Of course this only lasted for about 30 seconds, at which point I was trying to convince Lilly that jumping on the pallet was not as fun as watching the movie!

From Concord, we headed to South Charlotte on Sunday afternoon to spend a little time with my family.  Lots of grandparent spoiling occurred!  

Afternoon snack at the pool.  The water was COLD so we only swam for about five minutes, but the weather was perfect!

PawPaw getting some corn

Morning snuggles with Mimi and cousin Mason!

No pants dance on Dundee's fancy new dog bed

Lilly also got a NEW cousin this weekend!  We are so excited for Aunt Meredith and Uncle  Mikey and can't wait to meet our newest baby cousin, Dorothy.

We had such a fun weekend and are so happy we got to spend it with family, but this mama is exhausted!  Time to rest up before the start of another busy work week.  We have parent orientation at Lilly's school tomorrow evening, and Wednesday is her first day!  More to come on that, but say a prayer for my emotions because I feel sure I'll cry.  I am not sure who this big girl is and where my baby girl went!  Hopefully I can squeeze in a 17-week update tomorrow after orientation as well.  AND one week from today, we'll know the gender of Baby Baum 2.0!

Hope everyone had as wonderful of a Labor Day weekend as the Baums did.  Happy almost Tuesday!

Sarah

Houston Trip

Two blog posts in one week...dare I say I'm on fire?!  Just trying to play some serious catch-up!

At the end of February, we took a trip to Houston to visit Dan's sister Mere and her husband Mikey.  Although Lilly has been on a plane once before, I was more nervous about this flight.  First of all, the last time we flew with her, Lilly had barely started crawling and was still sleeping a lot during the day.  These days, with her walking and generally being into everything all the time, I was nervous about how she'd do with having to sit in our laps for an extended period of time.  Additionally, this was right around the time that Lilly had pneumonia, so I was slightly worried about that as well.  

Luckily, we got lots of good advice and suggestions, and she did better than I ever anticipated.  L was genuinely intrigued by all of the new faces on the plane, and spent a lot of time hamming it up with our surrounding passengers (sister is many things, but shy is not [normally] one of them).  In a nutshell, here are a few travel tips that worked for us the second time around:

• I saved a few small toys and some books that L got as birthday presents and didn't let her see them until we got on the plane.  My first purse and Elmo books (both courtesy of her bestie) provided quite a good bit of entertainment.
• Several people suggested that I take things that are sticky, such as sticky notes (my SIL's suggestion via a girlfriend of hers) and painters tape (L's pediatrician recommended this).  So, I armed myself with both of those as well as flags.  These three things provided HOURS (yes hours) of entertainment.  Serious life savers.  Lilly had a blast sticking them to the back of the tray table and moving them around.
• I was armed with lots of snacks, and once again made sure we had plenty of fluid/water to protect her little ears and prevent them from popping during take-off and landings.
• We downloaded a few episodes of Sesame Street onto the iPad as well as a few new apps (she loves the Fisher Price apps, and the iPad cover that Aunt Meagan and Uncle Bo gave L for Christmas also came in handy!).  

I was worried about layovers and missed naps on both travel days, but both actually ended up working to our advantage.  Layovers provided a nice break for L and she was able to run around and get some energy out.  Additionally, missed naps didn't cause nearly the dilemma I assumed they would (homegirl loves her sleep).  We were very fortunate that we did not suffer any meltdowns (even on our return flight, when L not only missed her afternoon nap but refused to sleep until we landed and got in the car to head home at 11:30 pm...yes you read that correctly).  

Without further ado, here are some photos from our fun trip to Houston.  We had a blast visiting with Aunt Mere & Uncle Mikey!  Disclaimer: I forgot to take an actual camera, so all of the photos are crappy iPhone photos with the exception of the ones that Mere took (I'm sure it goes without saying because you can clearly tell, but Mere's beautiful photos are the ones from the park!).

Friday morning, we left Raleigh to head to Houston.  

Lilly made a friend in the airport (you can't really see her, but she's behind L's head).  She had an iPad and Lilly wanted to see what she was watching.

Getting ready for takeoff!

What's that?  You're too busy to nap on the plane?  Sesame Street with Daddy it is.

Aforementioned painters tape/flags/sticky note obsession.  HOURS of entertainment, I tell you.

Lilly fell asleep on my shoulder LITERALLY as we were descending into Houston.  At that point, she was so tired that she slept HARD for about an hour.  She even stayed asleep for the walk through the airport!

We finally landed!  Uncle Mikey picked us up at the airport.  Luckily, the car seat travel bag we ordered prior to the first time we flew fit both the infant car seat and our convertible car seat.  I HIGHLY recommend it!

Once we arrived at Mere & Mikey's house, we relaxed and had an easy night.  Lilly had just enough of a nap that she was good to go until bed time, so we played outside (Did I mention that the weather in Houston was GORGEOUS?!  It was a nice change from the cold temperatures we've had in Raleigh).

Dan loved the hammock so much that he got one for his birthday last week.  He has already set it up in the back yard and used it!

Lilly enjoying her cheese dip from Lupe Tortilla.  Best cheese dip in the world, and I'm not even kidding.  Right, Steph?

On Saturday, we had breakfast and then walked to the local farmer's market.  After Lilly's morning nap, we went to the Houston Zoo, which is amazing...I HIGHLY recommend a trip if you're ever in the area.  We didn't get to explore even half of it, but we had a blast.  Saturday night was date night at the best sushi restaurant ever (unfortunately I can't remember the name...I'll update later when I find out).

Saturday morning snuggles with Daddy

Stylin' on the way to the farmer's market

Lilly LOVED the petting zoo!  The goats, unfortunately, ran from her just like Layla does, but she had fun chasing them.

This next series of photos is from where we FED A GIRAFFE.  Seriously.  It was the coolest thing ever, and possibly the highlight of Dan's life.  Look how close we got!!!!!

Lilly was not amused.  Just sleepy.

Date night!  Thanks to Christine & Grady for watching Baby Lilly for us.

On Sunday, we ate a delicious Mexican brunch and then took Lilly to the park in her PJs.  It was, as Mere would say, all the fun.

YUM I love Mexican food, especially black beans!!!

We really spent the rest of the day relaxing together before our flight back home.  I guess due to missing some naps, Lilly was extra tired, so she took the longest nap I think she's ever taken on Sunday (which may be why she wouldn't sleep on the flight home, even though it was so late!).  Mere & Mikey and Dan and I spent the afternoon playing canasta and relaxing.

I included this picture because I find her facial expression to be hilarious.

We had a blast in Houston and really enjoyed letting Mere & Mikey show us around their town.  Next visit, they'll have a little nugget of their own...and we can't wait!

Sarah