Trip preparation stress

On Monday we leave town for a month. This is the first time Willow is going on a plane and the first time we’ve taken such a long trip. I’m just now realizing how much work it is to pack for myself and two kids, especially when we are so limited by the airlines in what we can bring. Luckily, we have a friend at our destination willing to lend us baby gear, and we’ll be borrowing a bunch of stuff from my parents. I also ordered some essentials – oatmeal, raisins, diapers, wipes, etc. to be delivered to my parent’s house.


I have a horrible tendency of experiencing something similar to third trimester nesting whenever I leave for a trip. I don’t want to leave a single dirty garment, even if it means getting up at 6 a.m. on the day of departure to throw the last dirty items in the washer. All those papers that have been sitting there forever – I really must sort through them all. The junk on the countertops should be cleared off. Those clothes that don’t fit any more – freecycle them. All garbage must be removed, even from the garage.
It’s ridiculous, because if I haven’t had time to get to these items in the preceding months, I certainly don’t have the time while trying to pack. But the day or two before leaving is usually a mad rush to try to get as many of these little tasks done as possible. The fact that we are renting out our house during our absence means there is even more pressure to leave things in good condition.

Mark has been working very long hours, trying to get his work done before we leave. But it looks like it won’t happen and that he’ll need to work quite a bit during the first week of the trip. So among the many other preparatory tasks, I’ve been looking for a local sitter in Wisconsin. It’s not going to be much of a vacation for me if I have to manage a toddler and an infant at a waterpark on my own. Thanks to care.com I think I’ve found someone.

So while my days are now a continual to-do list, I know I’ll eventually finish. We’ll be forced out of the door, ready or not, to get our flight and then the fun will begin. We’ll be seeing tons of relatives, visiting some new places, and both River and Willows will have many new experiences. River is already very excited about the waterpark and his enthusiasm is contagious.

It’s going to be a lot of work taking care of two kids on the road. I’m seeing that already, just in the act of packing. But I hope it will be fun too. The next post will probably be from the road.

The long blob period

Upon visiting a friend with a five-month old child recently, Mark kept asking me questions about what River was like at that age. “Didn’t he interact more by then?” He asked. “When did he first sit up?” That was easy enough to calculate because it coincided with my first overnight trip away from him – at around age 5.5 months.

Later he commented, “I just realized how long the blob period is. That they don’t come out fully formed like little Rivers (thinking of him in his 2.5 year old state). That there is a long time in which they are only full of demands.”

I agree. The baby period is pretty boring and I’m not too excited about the blob period, or the fourth trimester. Yes, this baby’s skills seemed to be limited to smiling, waving her arms around, cooing, grabbing toys and fingers and lifting her feet. And no, these skills didn’t seem too momentous to us as bystanders.

But I do remember celebrating River’s first coo. I remember feeling so proud of him rolling over that I couldn’t wait for him to show off his new skill at mom and baby yoga (as if anyone would care). These things took on more meaning to us as parents because we knew what complete dependence he started from, and each move towards independence, however tiny, was a cause for celebration. Also, each little milestone met helped to reassure us that he didn’t have a hidden disorder that would make his life more difficult.

Hopefully, we’ll be touched by the strong parental interest again and that will help the blob period pass more quickly. That said, I do expect my butt to be tied to the couch in the initial weeks and I’m not really looking forward to that.