Have Baby, Will Travel

We went to Virginia to visit with the hub's family this weekend. It was a fun weekend full of learning experiences. Allow me to share:

1) My daughter is an exceptionally good traveler for being 14 mos old. She's patient, cheerful, easy-going - a dream traveling baby. Just don't let her fill up on milk and skip breakfast before starting out on an all-day drive. The start of a very long (hot, sunny) day in the car is not the ideal time to discover her ability to projectile vomit several feet or the copious amount of liquid her seemingly small tummy can hold. Three outfit changes later...

2) Never listen to a man when it comes to packing for a trip. The hubs always gives me a hard time about bringing too much stuff for short trips, but I like to plan for the unexpected - such as carsickness in a child who's never gotten carsick before and requires THREE OUTFIT CHANGES just on the drive to our destination. Unfortunately this time I had listened to him and didn't bring nearly as much as I normally would have - and therefore Josie almost ended up meeting some family members for the first time ever wearing a garbage bag (not really, but it sounds dramatic, doesn't it?)

3) When traveling with kids, even really good travelers, you can automatically add at least 2 hours to whatever time estimate Mapquest or the GPS gives you. In the days before Josie, we liked to pride ourselves on making "good time" on trips (meaning we stopped only for gas and played "bladder chicken" and treated the speed limit as more of a suggestion). Those days are over. Barf notwithstanding, diapers need changing and little tummies need filling and little bodies need a break from the confinement of car seats (especially car seats that smell like barf).

4) You really have to watch what you say around kids. Josie has a new word - barf. I told her she was cute even though she smelled like barf, and she promptly laughed and repeated, "barf". So ladylike. Which brings me to...

5) My little girl is not a prissy girly girl (thank God!) - at least not at this point. She spent the weekend crawling around in grass, mud, sand and dirt with her cousins out in the country - and could not have been happier. She ruined several more outfits and left a black ring in the tub after her bath, her knees are scraped up and her super sensitive skin is covered in a mystery rash and bug bites, but she had a blast that was worth it all. I'm utterly exhausted from chasing around behind her to prevent her from diving head first over 6 foot high walls and eating bugs and things of that sort - but that was worth it too.

6) As much as you adore your child, sometimes there is nothing.better.in.the.world than when Daddy takes them off to do something fun for a while and you get to put your feet up and read the newspaper and drink fruity wine coolers and eat cupcakes and not even have to talk. Which describes exactly what my fellow mom and cousin-in-law and I did with one lovely, decadent, kid-free afternoon while the dads and grandmas took the little ones on a hike. Pure bliss, I tell you. Pure bliss.

7) Men never listen. Somehow or another the hubs hurt his back. Maybe on that hike. Our hotel room had a jacuzzi in it - serendipitous, no? But the big doof didn't want to use it. He'd never been in one before in all of his 36 years and didn't see how it would help. I couldn't stress enough the powerful magic that is hot water propelled by jets, and finally convinced him to stop being a Mr. Tough Guy and give it a try. An hour later, pruney and blissed out, I had to convince him that he couldn't sleep in there due to drowning risks. Now, he's convinced we must buy one for our house. Hallelujah!

8) Traveling with a 14 month old is ridiculously exhausting and overwhelming and frankly, probably not really a sane thing to do - but we did it and we survived and we had enough fun to make it all worth it. Now if only I could get that smell out of the car and sleep til next week...