Skip to main content

With baby comes packing (and a lot of it)

Willow, Che and I are traveling to see the grandparents, aunts, cousins and Mos (or is it Moes or is it Mo's or is it Moses?) in Henderson, Tenn., this weekend.
And that brings up one of the big differences between being a couple without kids and being a couple with kids: packing for travel (they even have an app for that, God bless us packing-weary parents).
Back in my pre-child days, packing hardly mattered, probably taking up 1 zillionth of a tenth of a percent of my brain capacity to do (six days equals six days of socks and underwear plus some T-shirts, some shorts, a pair or two of pants, put on some shoes, throw in some toothpaste, and I was off).
That's hardly the case anymore. Take, for example, if you have a spit-up-prone baby. Do you take two burp clothes, four, eight or, maybe, 16? Better take 24. And how many diapers do you take? Or wipes? Do I need to take baby medicine? Is it going to be cold or warm or cold and warm or warm and hot then ... AACK!!!
You get the picture.
And now I'm about to share with you what might just be the biggest perk of having a stay-at-home parent: you can stay at home and spend the better part of a day packing (I honestly have no idea how working parents do pack).
We traveled A LOT during Willow's first nine months, and I needed all day on the day of departure to pack. AND I HAD AN APP FOR THAT!
Now I have it down to a science (if you count packing for Willow in just three hours to be a science).
But ... hey, wait ... I'm wasting valuable time here ...
I need to go pack!

Comments

  1. It gets easier as they get bigger, I promise! I packed for six days at Mom's, for three of us, in one of those rolling suitcases that fits in an overhead bin, three small tote bags (toys j, toys e, crafts/camera me) and favorite blankies. And we didn't even wash clothes while we were there. (Though we could have. And if you're visiting family, you should plan to, too!) Safe travels.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, and a jump rope and soccer ball in the car.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Adding a splash to the winter gray

Willow, Mommy and I went to the Y's pool on Sunday to take advantage of our membership and to do something summery in this dreary and cold weather. We had so much fun swimming and splashing, Willow and I went back on Tuesday. On Sunday, surprisingly, nobody else was at the pool, and the lifeguard seemed resigned to having to sit boringly in her stand. I have no problem with having an entire pool and a lifeguard all to myself, but, again, I was surprised nobody else was there, except for a few exercisers coming and going to use the steam room and the sauna (and a couple of guys hopped in the whirlpool for a few minutes). When Willow and I went on Tuesday, several people were in the pool, but they quickly scattered when the tot and I entered the pool. Maybe their time in the pool had come to a planned end. Maybe they didn't want to be in the water with someone who might pee or poop at any moment. After the initial scattering a couple of men came into the pool area and swam qui...

Among chaos, peace

I want to show you two pictures, but a little later. First I want to introduce you to chaos (or at least what I consider to be chaos) via a handy, dandy list: I am sitting at a laptop, pounding out a blog's letters as quickly as I can think of them. The laptop is only three months old, yet some of the keys stick sometimes. These sticky keys are the ghostly reminders that a toddler's sticky fingers have been pounding on them. Four loads of laundry lie in various states of "unfinish." One load is wet. One load is wrinkling. Two loads await their spins. A fifth load already has been tucked away in drawers, cabinets and closets (then untucked by a toddler then tucked again by me). Cups, plates and bowls hang for dear life to a hastily stacked pile of dirty dishes in the sink while a clean set of dishes sits in the dishwasher. A pile of pictures and postcards blanket the floor beside the desk in the guest room. This was the work of the sticky fingers that pounded on...

Willow's sliding frenzy

Last week, Willow took a huge step in her quest to become a big girl (she's abiding by her plans, not Mommy's and Daddy's, who want her to stay a baby forever). Willow and I went to the playground for a morning of play and a picnic. Willow's idea of "a morning of play" is usually spending A LOT of time on the swing. Up to last week, if she wanted out of the swing, it was to walk over to another, better swing. Then back again. Last week, things changed. I put Willow at the top of a tot slide and started cheering her to let loose. I readied to keep her from tumbling off the bottom of the slide. She let loose, scooted down the slide and stopped just short of the edge. She shimmied off, smiling and took off after the steps to go back up. She clamored to the top of the slide (this set of slides had one "top" with the option of going down three slides: a straight one, a curvy one and a tunnel one). Willow reached the top, sat down, scooted her bottom t...