Baby's First Road Trip

This past weekend was the first time we took both of our girls away for the weekend.  The trip to my parents' cottage took a little over an hour by car and provided several lessons regarding travel with small children.  Here is what I took away from the weekend.

1.  We pile everything that needs to go into the car along one wall in our house.  If it is along the wall, it must go in the car.  We can see what we are missing with one glance. 

2.  When we are not traveling by some form of mass transit or airplane, we use open tote bags.  Everyone gets one tote bag.  We also have a separate tote bag for snacks and the kids' sippy cups and bottles.  I can easily see what is in the bag because they are open.  I also recommend getting bags that are different colors or patterns.  I was able to enlist Molly's help and say, "Please put this in the orange bag." 

3.  I should have packed my bag the evening before we left while the girls were sleeping.  I found I was very overwhelmed trying to pack myself and both girls while taking care of Emma.  She is still at that phase where she doesn't like to nap during the day unless she is sleeping on my chest.  It makes packing a bit of a challenge.

4.  Once we are at our destination, we use one of the tote bags into a laundry bag.  This way the dirty laundry gets dumped by the washing machine when we get back. 

5.  Carefully evaluate how many toys you will need.  If it fits in the kids' tote bags after they are packed with the essentials, a toy can come along.  If not, it needs to stay behind. 

6.  Try to be as flexible as you can be and plan for your journey to take longer than normal.  I thought I was so clever and planned to have dinner at home, put the girls in their pajama's and get in the car at bedtime.  The girls would fall asleep in the car and I would have a quiet trip to the cottage.  Ha....Emma cried the 75% of the time.  I had to stop twice to replace her pacifier.  Although Molly was sound asleep throughout most of the ride, she woke up when we arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm.  It took an hour to get her back to sleep.

7.  Unfortunately, this trip also confirmed what we had long suspected... we will likely need a new car.  Our five seat Subaru Forester has served us extremely well with one child.  It also works well around town.  With that said, we went away for one weekend and we didn't bring two sets of golf clubs, the second Pack N Play or the second stroller.  Having a five seat car also means that when we visit family, it means we have to take two cars whenever we go anywhere such as going out to dinner.  A larger car will allow us to take other folks with us when we visit family.