Baby's first vacation

In May, we went to California. Before the trip, it was a little stressful trying to figure out what all was needed for the baby, and how to pack it all without paying extraordinary luggage fees! What I learned was that airports are quite family-friendly! Oh, and our little boy was absolutely in his element at the airport. This was quite fortunate since we had a couple of hour long delays at the Cedar Rapids airport. A small airport with not a lot of entertainment. Unless you are 10 months old. Having just acquired his crawling skills, he spent an hour crawling around on the airport floor, chasing after a little plastic cup. He had a blast. Then, when we put him in his stroller, he made adorable smiley faces at all the strangers he got to catch his eye. This was entertaining for us as well, since we got to see many strangers, including men in fancy business suits and the type of shoes that need to be shined, talking baby talk to our little guy.  This continued throughout the trip. By the time we boarded the plane, he was exhausted. I nursed him and he was out. Slept almost the entire flight to Denver. We also learned that airplanes are not very baby friendly. They don't really have a way to change a diaper. when we asked, the flight attendant suggested we hold him with one arm and change his diaper with the other. Um, he's over 20 pounds. We waited for the plane to land. Luckily he didn't fuss. But next time you are on a plane with a screaming baby you'll know there's a pretty good chance they have a wet or poopy diaper and the parents have no way of doing anything about it. Luckily, we had just barely enough time to change his diaper at the airport before boarding the second plane.

We learned that you can check a car seat (no charge) and take the stroller to the gate to check (no charge). It doesn't matter what the size of the stroller is. So why not bring the mammoth stroller? Because in the airport, you will be taking the baby in and out of the stroller so often, it will be much better if you don't have to strap him into the 5 point harness. Plus, it was just easier to travel around with a much smaller stroller. Plus, if we lost the thing, we could replace it for about $19 at any big chain department store. Plus, we're unlikely to lose it since it's highly unlikely that a $19 stroller is going to get stolen. In fact, people tend to be happy to get rid of them. We got ours for free, anyway!

And security lines were a breeze. The Cedar Rapids airport was small. There was no one in line for security. We chatted with the security people for a bit because they seemed bored. Bored people, on the clock, tend to make a lot of googly eyes at babies. Small airports can be great. Leaving San Francisco, for some reason, took about 1 1/2 hours at the ticket counter. No shit. People in front and behind us had missed their flights and were LIVID. Traveling with two parents was a huge plus here because I got to take the baby out of the line, to the bathroom to change his diaper, etc. during that time while my husband held the place in line. Then, there was a super long line for security, but we got to go through the family line, which no one was in. So, we breezed through security and got to the gate in time and we didn't miss our flight! Thanks to our baby, we were not livid! And I thought traveling with babies would be more stressful.

Baby Bjorn style

The trip went pretty well, everywhere we went, he was getting a super long walk in his stroller, which he loved. Knowing we were maybe being a little excessive, we brought the stroller AND the Baby Bjorn AND the Moby. But we used them all! My husband likes the Bjorn better, but it hurts my shoulders, so the Moby was for me. And the stroller was great so that we didn't have him in a carrier when walking around outside on hot days.

Breast feeding was handy. I have never breastfed in public so much, but when he was hungry, I could provide. I looked for park benches in the shade. at one point I had to feed him in a restaurant. I had a thin blanket that i covered him with, and the waitress said people do that all the time there, so it didn't seem too awkward. Also, it wasn't like I was going to see anyone I knew!

We did run out of clothes for the baby. I was going to look for a laundromat to do a load, but the timing worked out so that we could do the laundry at our friend's house during dinner one night. It was great being halfway through the vacation and having all clean clothes for the baby!

Having only worn cloth diapers, we had to figure out what to do for the vacation. If we packed the diapers, they would take up too much room, requiring another suitcase ($25-$35 each way). Plus, we would have to find a laundromat every few days. We went with the Grovia disposable inserts, and they worked great. 

After the trip, I realized having planned this for weeks and having organized lists worked well. We had everything we needed and it went pretty smoothly. The one thing I didn't realize was that we wouldn't be able to do as much as we wanted to because the most important thing when traveling with a 10 month old is that he gets adequate naps, so that means a lot of hours hanging out in the hotel room. Which isn't such a bad thing, just look at those cheeks.