Tips on Traveling with a One Year Old

As I mentioned a couple days ago, our little family took a trip to Florida last week. The weather was beautiful and I totally didn’t want to come home, but alas money must be made and mortgages must be paid so we’re back now.

What I didn’t realize when we left was that there are so many differences in traveling on a plane/taxi/hotel with a kid that is just 6 months older than the last time you took a trip. So, I’ve put together an easy peasy little breakdown of what worked for us

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And yes, I know that these particular tips won’t necessarily work for EVERYONE… which is why I’m preceding them with the title of What Worked for US. Take it with a grain of salt, or try some of the things that we tried and hopefully the world will be a happier place. Or something like that.

Traveling by Plane
Why does your kid turn into an angry octopus ninja the moment that you try to get him to sit on your lap on a plane? Wait, is that just my kid?! The fact that kids under 2 can fly free as a “lap baby” is awesome, but you may be asking yourself if it was really worth it by time you reach your destination.

What worked for us:

  • Food. Not just any food though, the kind of non-messy individual portioned food that you can feed your kid like a baby bird. No, not by chewing it up in your mouth and spitting it in theirs (and yes, I know the Clueless girl totally did this with her kid), but by handing it over piece by piece directly into their mouth. I packed a bag of cheerios and a bag of cheddar goldfish and they worked fantastically.
  • Toys. Or more specifically, toys on strings. Because if you god-forbid drop a toy on the floor once you’re in your seat you’re going to have to be a third degree black belt in yoga to get that thing back. I packed a couple little toys (a car, a little nubby talking rattle-type toy and a fuzzy bunny) and tied a string to each one so that I could wrap it around my wrist while Jack was playing with them. And he totally enjoyed throwing the toy on the floor and watching mommy pull it up over and over and over again for what felt like hours. Or for two minutes, which is a long time for a kid.
  • Window seat. The plane was totally full, so there was no way we could block off a whole row to ourselves (drat!). The next best thing was to have me sitting in the window seat with Jack on my lap and Travis in the middle seat. We could keep him contained and he could also look out the windows to watch the guys throw our luggage around.

In our Room
I purposely reserved a room with a separate sitting area with the intentions of setting up the crib in there, giving each of us a little privacy. Yeah, that didn’t work at all. First off, when I called to confirm that they had a crib I didn’t specify that a PLAYPEN is NOT A CRIB! To Jack, a playpen means PLAY TIME while waiting for mommy to get ready for work. So, when we stuck him in a playpen and expected him to sleep at night he was understandably (and loudly) confused and unhappy with our stupidity.

What worked for us:

  • King Bed. Get a king bed, you know… just in case you all end up sleeping there. Because even though it’s quite likely that your kid will still somehow kick you in the neck at 3am, at least you’ll have somewhere to roll to in order to whimper quietly.
  • Childproof. Hotel rooms are not necessarily designed with your kid in mind, so bring your own outlet caps if your kid likes poking his fingers in them. Block the bathroom door with the stroller if you must, in order to slow the kid down from crawling at warp speed to explore the toilet. Also, try to get a room with a bathtub because holding a slippery, naked kid in a shower isn’t for the faint of heart.
  • Toys. You’re probably not going to want to pack your kids entire collection of toys, much less lug it around from the airport. Just pack a few of his favorites and go purchase a cheap sand toy set from a nearby dollar store or CVS. There you go, now you have toys for the room, bath toys and sand toys all in one $5 purchase. If you have room, you can throw them in your suitcase to bring home or just cut your losses and leave them behind.

IMG_1894On the Beach
This was actually Jack’s second visit to the beach, since we went to Ocean City last summer. However, at that point you could just sit him in a tent and leave him there. Now, the kid moves… so it’s a whole new ballgame.

What worked for us:

  • Sunscreen. In my family, we call it “buttering the kids up” and little Jack was buttered from head to toe in sunscreen every single day, whether we were in swimsuits or not. Their skin is more fragile than ours, so don’t take any chances. Also, think about how much you whine when you’re sunburnt and imagine how your kid would react… it’s worth it to spend a few minutes covering them in lotion before you get them dressed.
  • Hat. Yes, your kid needs to wear a sunhat. However, you would think that you were trying to set his hair on fire the way that most of them react when you try to put them on. We used the Distraction Ball technique and as soon as we put the hat on Jack’s head, we immediately thrust a toy or cheddar goldfish into his hand. Boom. Done.
  • Diaper Bag Switchout. I normally carry a super cute Fossil messenger bag as my diaper bag (and yes, my husband carries it too), however, on our trip I changed out to a simple black backpack. One pocket held diapers, wipes and my wallet, the next held a bib and some easy snacks, and the third had a couple small toys. When I had Jack on my back in one of those baby backpack contraptions, my husband had the diaper backpack on his.

At the Restaurants
Let me start with saying that we are incredibly lucky because Jack is totally a restaurant kid. He comes out with us pretty much everywhere and is quite content to chill out in a restaurant high-chair. I totally understand that some kids are not like this and I hear it from my friends (and strangers) that our days are numbered until Jack turns into a total monster out in public. To them I’d like to say: Shut Your Face.

What worked for us:

  • Snack-etizers. Be prepared. If your kid is starving and the food is taking FOREVER, you KNOW that he is going to freak the frack out, right? We always had some cheerios, cheddar goldfish, teddy grahams and those little applesauce packets with us. Just a few pieces at a time are enough distraction (and munchies) to keep Jack happy until the meal arrives.
  • Share. If there is nothing on the kiddie menu that you want to feed your kid (so many restaurants think that all kid’s food needs to be fried), order something for yourself that they can eat. There is always some kind of plain-like chicken or fish that would be healthy and yummy for a kid to eat. You can also usually order an extra veggie side to share. And once again, YES, I KNOW that not every kid likes eating everything. Luckily, we’re still in the stage where Jack likes literally EVERYTHING so he’s content with bites of my fish, green beans and mashed potatoes. Bonus: I eat a lot healthier when I’m ordering for the both of us.
  • BYOB. Jack still gets a bottle first thing in the morning and last thing at night, the rest of the day he drinks out of a straw cup. We bought ONE bottle and ONE cup. That’s it. I put some dishwashing detergent in a little travel bottle and we were good to go.

As I mentioned before, we had an amazing time on our trip which means I’m already planning our next vacation in the back of my mind (don’t tell Travis). However, since Jack is so-very-close to walking I’m sure that our next trip will be a whole horse of a different color.

So chime in on your experiences, what are the best tips you have for traveling with a kid of any age?

Our Beach Getaway to Fort Lauderdale

Did you guys realize that I was out of town last week? I tried to be all sneaky-like, because it’s never a good idea to announce to the world when your house is going to be empty. However, I did post a couple beachy shots on my Instagram account and told you about my bad mammajamma sunburn, so you MIGHT have had a little teensy bit of a clue.

In addition to sharing a few of my favorite pictures from our trip, I wanted to share what worked for us in the whole traveling with a one year old thang. Because doing the whole plane/taxi/hotel trip with an (almost) toddler is MUCH different than doing it with a 5 month old!

The blog post got SUPER long though, so I’m going to break it into a 2-parter. Today will be fun and pretty pictures (yay) and Thursday will be the tips on what worked for us.

Why not Wednesday, you ask? Well, Wednesday will be something super special… the Origami Owl giveaway! {cue insanely loud and obnoxious screaming and maybe even The Wave, which is really hard to do when it’s just you. Basically it just looks like I’m randomly standing up…}

So since this is going to be a super awesome week of posts, let’s get to the pretty pictures!

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There you go, my vacation in an nutshell. I’ll have a couple more pictures on Thursday to go with my random tips and trips post on how we survived the plane with my angry octopus ninja! And, of course, tomorrow is the GIVEAWAY!*

 

*Imagine this in my Oprah voice. You know, like “YOU get a CAR, YOU get a CAR!” but with an awesome necklace and just one of you. Yeah. That.

Meal Planning for Slackers

This morning I gave my Facebook followers a chance to Choose Their Own Adventure (oh gosh do I miss those books) and decide on today’s blog topic. The choice was between my experience with the Tata Wrangler of getting an actual grown-up bra fitting over the weekend OR  how I suck at planning meals during the week.

After a super quiet morning on the FB page, I was surprised to see that meal planning won! So either you all are still knocked off-center by Daylight Saving Time or you have the same issues I do when trying to cook during the week.

Basically what it comes down to is a lack of time. Well, lack of time in addition to just being plain exhausted by the end of the workday.

I work Monday – Friday each week and typically get home around 6:30 or so. I usually have a work event once a week (sometimes more often), where I don’t get home until 9:00 or later. So, that leaves me with 4 weeknights that I SHOULD be able to cook dinner.

Here’s what usually* happens: I start the week off on the right foot by making a list of potential meals on Sunday and then getting all the ingredients needed from the grocery store. However, I decide to forgo dinner for Cheerios on Monday because my husband ends up working late. Then, Tuesday night I actually cook one of the dinners I planned. On Wednesday, I get stuck in traffic and it ends up taking me 2 hours to get home, so I stop through the drive-thru on my way. Most Thursdays, I work late and then once we hit Friday I’m so tired from the week that I don’t want to cook and would rather go out someplace nice.

Before I know it, Saturday is here and whatever food I purchased the previous week has gone bad in the refrigerator. It’s a waste of money. It’s also terrible for my waistline because of all those extra on-the-go calories that are creeping into my mouth. Frankly it annoys the crap out of me that I can never seem to get it together enough to have actual homemade dinners.

That’s when the mommy guilt kicks in. Or wife guilt. Or WHATEVER guilt. Why am I such a FAILURE? Why do I SOMEHOW FAIL every single week to provide my family with sustenance. I mean, why can’t I get it together enough to make a damn dinner for everyone?!

Oh, and before you make the suggestion — my husband doesn’t cook. We tried having him be in charge of food one night a week and he came up with either sandwiches or pizza delivery. As far as I know HE doesn’t feel guilty about his lack of cooking skills though, that’s reserved for me.

So if you have the same issues that I do with getting dinner on the table, I have found a couple little tricks that help us:

  • I invest in a few Let’s Dish meals that are the ones that you cook straight from the freezer. These work out best for us because they usually take about 30 minutes to cook and if I change my mind, the meal just stays in the freezer and nothing goes to waste.
  • I try to make a super-sized crockpot meal that can last for two dinners. If I throw something in the crockpot for Tuesday’s dinner, we can reheat it again another night.
  • I buy quickie meal ingredients for last minute options: spaghetti sauce and noodles, sandwich makings that could be smushed in the George Forman for homemade paninis, salsa and shredded cheese that can be smeared on a tortilla for a quesadilla, etc.
  • BRINNER – It’s breakfast for dinner people and I always keep the ingredients needed for pancakes or French toast in the house.

This isn’t enough though and I’d really like to be one of those people that have an actual dinner at home a few nights a week. So, I’m going to try really, really hard to find some new recipes that are quick and easy. In fact, I think I’m going to make April our month of eating at home with me making something for dinner each night that I’m not working late.

Help me out, what are your tricks for getting meals on the table during the week? Do you have a go-to recipe that always saves the day? If so, PLEASE share it with me because I could use all the help I can get!

 

*This does not include my son – he ALWAYS gets a well-rounded dinner which includes vegetables and fruit. I just need to start caring about what I put in my body as much as I care about what goes in his!