Last week we had a wonderful time in New Orleans for my husbands best friend wedding.  I have had some time to reflect this week on how traveling has changed since our last big trip with Dude to Costa Rica when he was 1.  Now that Dude is now almost 2 1/2, traveling is a totally different experience and my travel tips are in need of an update.

1) Oh Where Shall We Sleep

Now that he is sleeping in a big boy bed at home, a hotel crib or pack and play was out of the question.  When we are driving on a trip we bring along a kid sized inflatable mattress and he does really well on that, but it is too bulky to bring on a flight.  This left me pondering where Dude would sleep in the hotel.  At home we use Inflatable Bed Rails* to keep him from falling out of bed at night, and I decided to bring them along.  They worked like a charm!  Since the hotel room was a suite with a king sized bed, we were able to set up part of the bed for Dude using the bed rails and there was still enough room for Josh and I to sleep comfortably. When not inflated, the bed rails  are small enough to be squeezed into a carry on suitcase and they come with a hand pump that inflates them in less than a minute.  We try to get a suite when we travel now because it means that Dude can go to sleep and we can sit in the other room without worrying about waking him up, and often times the suite is not much more expensive than a regular room.

2) Flight Times and Cranky Pants

Our flight times worked to our advantage on the way down to New Orleans, but not so much on the way back.  We had a mid-morning flight on the way down, and Dude slept almost the whole first flight, even while sitting in his own seat using the CARES harness. On the way back, we had an afternoon flight during a time when he is normally restless (on a good day).  He wouldn’t sleep on the first leg of the flight and by the second flight we passed out before take off laying across our laps, after fully rejecting use of the CARES harness.  Thankfully the flight attendants didn’t make us sit him up, otherwise it would have been a miserable flight for everyone.  In a perfect world, I would book flight times that accommodated Dude’s schedule, but that is not always possible.

The CARES Harness is a device approved by the FAA that converts the lap belt into a 5 point harness for small children.  I was able to borrow one from a friend and it was easy to use and Dude sat in his own seat and accepted using it.  That is, when he didn’t have his cranky pants on.

The sure way to cure cranky pants is deep breaths and ice cream.  I find that this applies to nearly every situation, travel related or not.

3) The Stroller Makes a Comeback

In my previous travel tips, I said to ditch the stroller. That was fine for my non-walking, much lighter 1-year-old, when I wasn’t 7 1/2 months pregnant.   Now that Dude is a rambunctious, 2 1/2-year-old, and I am 7 1/2 months pregnant — we could not have survived without a stroller.

Our flight to New Orleans went through Atlanta.  We flew into Terminal A and had to get to the last gate in Terminal E in 30 minutes, with a two-year old and three suitcases.  There is no way we would have gotten there if we did have the stroller.  We had a simple umbrella stroller and it was perfect.  They will check the stroller at the gate (for free) and it will be waiting for you when you de-board the flight, so that you are able to use it within the terminal.  It also was key to traveling around city, some times he would get out and walk but mostly he was content to take in the sights from the comfort of his stroller.

4) When in Doubt Watch Trains

We stayed at a beautiful hotel on St. Charles Avenue, and the St. Charles Streecar ran right in front of the hotel.  We spent hours watching the streetcar, counting the streetcars, waiving a people on the streetcars, etc.  At home Dude normally wakes up at about 4:30am, well New Orleans is 1 hour earlier, so we were up at about 3:30am every morning.  The hotel had breakfast at 6:30, but by about 6am every day we had run out of things to do in the hotel room and would need to go for a walk.  Enter streetcars – we would walk out front, sit on a stoop and watch the streetcars drive by.  This also worked in the afternoons when he would get restless after we returned to the hotel from being out and about all day.

Thank you streetcars!

5) Bring Back Up

The most important tip that I have for traveling with a two-year old is: Grandparents!!

After this trip we realized that they way to not only survive but enjoy traveling with a two-year old is to bring back up.

Could we have traveled by ourselves and had a good time? Yes.  But we had an even better time because we were fortunate enough to have my parents with us on this trip.

Since we don’t live in the same state as either of our parents, getting to travel with them is a real treat.  It lets Dude spend quality time with his grandparents, it lets us spend quality time with them away from the hustle and bustle of home and it allows us to all experience a different city through the eyes of a child.  Watching Dude enjoy a beignet at Cafe Du Monde, ride the streetcars and watch in amazement as the airplanes maneuvered around the tarmac made the trip so much more special than if we had gone without him.

My next travel related post will probably be, Traveling with Two Tots in Tow, but you will have to wait a few more months for that

*Just so you know, any products I recommend are based on my personal usage and have not been given products or paid by companies to try products.  If that ever becomes the case I will clearly state the prior to my recommendation.

March 2011

By the way, I should mention that I am 25 weeks pregnant!!

I am exhausted just recounting it all, and am wondering what the rest of the month has in store for us.

I am really hoping that it is not another six months before I write again, but at this rate I cannot make any promises.  :- )

This morning I was too lazy/busy/chasing a child around with a pair of pants/etc., to go downstairs and grab my clean underwear from the dryer (where it has been for the last two days) and so I put on the only clean pair left in my drawer.  I usually don’t wear this pair because they are prone to giving me wedgies, but you work with what you’ve got, right?  Said underwear proceeded to bother me, more than usual, for most of the morning.

When I finally had a chance to use the restroom at about 11:30am, I realized that my underwear were on inside out.  Great.  You know what bothered me most about this ?

It was the fact that the first time I had a chance to notice the state of my underwear since 6am wasn’t until 11:30am!!!

That is like saying “Hello urinary tract, I am not busy enough so please if you have a chance, can you hook me up with an urinary tract infection to go with my inside-out underwear?  Thanks.”

XOXO,  Rachel

Did I need to let him run around in the rain in his pajamas? No.

Did he love it? Yes!

Intentional Happiness Project

Momalom

Bad Mommy Moments

I hadn’t thought about the article again until today when I came across the amazing video below.  In honor of World Breastfeeding Week I want to share it with you.  If you have time, its well worth the watch.

Amazing!

More information can be found at http://breastcrawl.org/

I know, shockingly different!

There are a few reasons for this change.

1) If you hadn’t already noticed, the url for the blog has always been milkonmyboots.wordpress.com.  I was afraid from the onset that if I put the word “breast” in my url that I would end up censored from hyper vigilant internet “protection” software.  Heaven forbid that someone use the word breast in the context of their actual purpose (but that is a much longer rant for another time)!

2) Lately, I have considered that the name “Breastmilk on my Boots”,  may be excluding some people from thinking that this blog is for them.  You know like dads, or moms who didn’t breastfeed, or parents who adopted, etc.  Hopefully the content of my blog is of interest to all parents or soon to be parents, and while I may talk about breastfeeding here, it is by no means the only topic of conversation.

3) Lastly, Dude and I ended our breastfeeding about a month ago and so changing the name of the blog makes the end of that part of our relationship more real to me.  Even though for the past several months we were only nursing at night, to see it end is a sort of bittersweet thing. Thankfully it was a mutual decision and the Dude is now quite happy with his sippy cup of “la milk” before he goes to sleep.  After almost 18 months of nursing, I was trying to figure out how you even go about stopping and was very relieved that he did it on his own!

Isn’t that the key to surviving it all, I mean we didn’t get in the business of parenting for the salary, benefits, and vacation time.  If you can’t smile and laugh about it,  you will cry, or lose your mind trying to control it all!

Today, I was going to post a few websites that help I go to when I need some help letting go and laughing about life.  A great blog that I go to often is Bad Mommy Moments.  When I was checking it out this morning, I found an icon that had three exclamation points under the words Intentional Happiness.  Intrigued, I clicked on them and it took me to another blog, Momalom.

I began reading about a joint project that they started called Intentional Happiness, which is all about finding the moments or making the moments that get us through the tough times.   Making time for happiness and taking time to cherish the little moments of joy that we often rush past and overlook.

For instance, like when your child has picked up a puzzle piece and is about to chuck it at the dog, and you patiently ask him to put it down but are fully prepared to catch it midair before it makes contact with your unsuspecting canine – and he miraculously, puts the puzzle piece down!!! Not only puts it down, but puts in back on the puzzle board, in the right place, for the first time!!!!   Enjoy that moment!!  And remember it 15 minutes later when your little one is screaming in his car seat and throwing stuffed animals at your head while you are driving.

On their blogs, Momalom and Bad Mommy Moments, celebrate their !!! in photos and I am going to try to start doing the same.

Here is one to start things off.

It doesn’t get much happier then that, does it?

What are your moments of !!! ??

Please share them in a comment.

Did I mention he also speaks french?  Well if adding “le” to the beginning of every word counts as speaking french, i.e.  le milk, le ball, le book, le bink.  Okay, so maybe he doesn’t speak french.  I my mind I imagine Zoe (our french bulldog),  sneaking out of her crate at night and going upstairs and teaching the Dude french in his sleep.

This weekend my bubble was burst when my friend pointed out that Dude was trying to say “the”, as in “the milk”, “the ball”, “the book”, “the bink”.  Josh later concurred that he also had thought that Dude was trying to say “the”.

I suppose makes more sense, but I still like my version better.

Our band had a gig this past weekend.  Often when we play out, friends or family will come and stay with us for the weekend so that we can hang out and they can see us perform.  This gig was no exception, my brother and some long time friends came for the weekend and we had a blast (as usual)!  Although for me, one things was markedly different, I was actually able to hang out with them!!!

When I got pregnant, the band wasn’t even a year old and we had played open mics, but never a full blown gig.  So my introduction to the life and times of a rock star have been spent under the influence of major doses of pregnancy hormones, in a fog of sleep deprivation and running out the car between set breaks so I could pump (glamorous, I know) .  In the last two and a half years or so by then end of all our gigs, I have wanted nothing more then to collapse into a heap on my bed, never mind have fun and entertain guests.  Not saying that it wasn’t fun, but only a crazy person is out performing a week before she has a baby, (see crazy person in action here).

This weekend it was different, so different in fact that following our gig Saturday night, we went down the street to hear another band at 1 o’clock in the morning!  Shout out to the McLovins, you kids rock!!  Even my friends who were visiting said that it was “nice to have me back”, and I have to agree.

I don’t know if it is the fact that Dude is finally sleeping at night, or that we have finished nursing, or that it just takes 18 months to make sense of new motherhood, but it is nice to feel somewhat back to normal.  Of course this does mean that I will probably be pregnant again before the summer is over, because we don’t do “normal” for very long in our house.  But if motherhood has taught me nothing else, it has taught me to enjoy the moments as they come.

Pre-baby:

On work nights, in bed my 11pm and sleep until 6am. On the weekends, in bed by ??? and sleep until ???

While pregnant:

Early in pregnancy – fall asleep while eating breakfast, wake up 1pm and realized that you have just slept through half of your workday, try to decide whether or not its worth going into the office. Later in pregnancy – wake up multiple times every night to pee but fall back asleep quickly (this is a useful skill for once little one arrives).

When little one arrives:

Sleep deprived, but its all worth it and you can’t stand being away from the little guy that long anyway.

16 months later:

Roughly 10 minutes after you fall asleep every night, some how your little one knows and thinks its a good time to misplace his binky. You then proceed to fall asleep standing over his crib while rubbing his back.  Approximately 5 hours later you find yourself having conversations that go like this “I know you went to bed at 7pm but its 4am and its not time to get up yet!”, but you can’t be too upset because at least he slept until 4.

And you just keep telling yourself that one day these sleepless nights will be a distant memory, that is until he is a teenager.