This past weekend we took our first mini-family vacation. I was slightly nervous about the trip - long drive, being out of Jude's normal day, etc. But it went pretty well!
Typically Ryan and I leave at night and travel through the evening to avoid traffic, but this time we left in the morning to make a day out of it. We were out of the house around 9:00 and on our way. Typically the drive to North Carolina takes us significantly longer than the rest of our family (maybe Ryan and I are just too cautious) and we knew with a baby on board it'd take us even longer. I made a point to feed Jude immediately before climbing in the car to get him to sleep and to make the first stretch of the trip as long as we could.
All in all the drive down went very well. There was one point that we hit a bit of traffic and Jude woke up wanting to eat and we couldn't pull over, but it was nothing a pacifier for a few minutes couldn't fix.
That night (and the next day) Jude seemed a little out of his element. While his schedule (yes, he's getting a schedule of some sort!!) seemed to be a little thrown off it wasn't too bad. He had a hard time letting himself fall asleep when I knew he had to be exhausted - but he adjusted and was the normally happy baby I knew he could be.
The actual time in North Carolina was grand as well. My car got a much needed tune up, we spent time with my mom and Curt, saw little Ms. Olivia, had a family b-day dinner for me and my mom took me shopping for a new outfit (for my birthday of course). As usual it was a lot of stuff packed into about 48 hours. I think we really need to start making the trip longer.
It was nice - even after just a couple of days - getting home and back into our own environment. But it's nice to know that traveling with Jude wasn't bad at all and that for the most part he just went with the flow.
One thing worth mentioning is the amount of stuff I packed. I tried to be as good as I could about not taking things we wouldn't use. For example I insisted we take Jude's favorite pieces of baby gear: the bouncy seat and his play mat. Unfortunately the seat doesn't fold down or condense at all so took up a good chunk of space (we were already working with minimal space with the big old clunker of a stroller). The play mat was probably a good idea to keep him off the floor, but still for 2 days, not that important. I probably could have left all of that and the pack n' play at home and been just fine. Things to remember for the future I suppose.
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