Vacation Preparations

Chris and I once watched a History Channel show about Air Force One and all the preparations that go into any trip the president of the United States takes. I was fascinated by the logistics of transporting the president. Foreign airports are upgraded ahead of time to meet safety specifications, secret shoppers spread out across metro D.C. to buy all the food the president, his staff and crew will eat while traveling, helicopters and armored limousines are airlifted ahead of time, and even the fuel is transported over, tested and secured against tampering. Why does all this suddenly seem similar to preparing to vacation with a baby?

I never once gave second-thought to traveling with a kid before I had kids myself, because I'd grown up with the stories of my parents traveling with me, which included a trip to Paris when I was 18 months old. A picture of my dad holding me at the top of the Eiffel Tower hung in my house my entire childhood and stories of my running up and down the plane with French-speaking passengers cooing over me are still told. No horror stories of running out of diapers or melt-downs in front of a trendy Parisian sidewalk cafe? Nope. It must have been a blast. Now I ask, were my parents nuts?

But here I am planning a trip with a baby. You see, as a stay-at-home mom, I'm desperate for a vacation. Actually, I demanded one, so we're going on our very first family vacation, to Seattle. Pre-baby, I would have booked a flight, a hotel and a rental car in about ten minutes and not done much more until my departure date other than check out a travel book from the library and pack my suitcase. Maybe I could have even gotten everything in a carry-on and breezed through security after skipping the baggage check. But Barack can't take Michelle out to a dinner and a Broadway show for date night in NYC without the Secret Service, White House staff, reporters and three aircraft involved. Meanwhile, my days of traveling "light" (all relative since I have been known to pack for every possible scenario) are over too.

Although we like to think of ourselves as frugal travelers, a lot of concessions were made with Oliver's comfort and our own in mind. Since Oliver goes to bed so early and dinner out won't be as feasible, we decided our schedule and his would be incompatible with sharing a hotel room and instead are renting a one-bedroom apartment through homeaway.com. Since we're staying near the center of Seattle, we could have gotten away without a car for at least some of the trip, but with a baby, I'm just not that adventurous anymore. And because the last time we rented a car, we had to upgrade to a mid-size to accommodate Oliver's stroller along with the rest of our stuff, we justified the purchase of a fancy umbrella stroller because it means we can go back to renting a compact. The savings equals the cost of a stroller and at least we get a stroller out of the deal, right?

The purchases didn't stop with the stroller. Eventually Oliver will outgrow his infant car seat, so we bit the bullet a little early and bought a light and compact convertible car seat that also happens to be approved for use on an aircraft. We're still not required to buy Oliver his own seat, but the carseat will be able to pull double-duty once we are. In the meantime, we'll figure it'll be easier to hang from the handle-bars of our fancy new stroller than the infant car seat with base would be.

The last time we flew with Oliver, he wasn't yet on solids and this new development in his life has added a whole new complexity to traveling with him. What will we feed him while flying that he won't smear all over himself, the seat and the person sitting next to him? And then how will we feed him once we're settled into our home-away-from-home? Oliver uses a compact booster seat I had thought about trying to pack, but at $25+ a suitcase each way, the small booster seat was going to take up too much precious suitcase space. My baby-led weaning "mentor," always full of good ideas, and whose son is already an international traveler, suggested a contraption called MyLittleSeat that essentially straps your kid to a chair. Then I found a silicone mat to suction cup to the table in place of a tray. I added to my Amazon shopping spree a few new bibs, the ones with the food catcher hanging from the bottom - so I'm not trying to sweep up Cheerios from underneath a plane seat - and a "snack trap" to hold Oliver's (dry only) snacks.

The only logistical challenge it seems we don't have to worry about is a crib since the owners of the vacation apartment, who have young children, are kindly lending us their pack 'n' play.

With all the necessary upgrades and investments needed to make the trip feasible, it has crossed my mind whether the hassle is worth it. Maybe we should have stuck closer to home, or just stayed home. But Chris and I have this belief that if you don't start something while you have the opportunity, you'll never do it. How we travel will be different now that we have a baby, but it's really relatively easy given that we only have one right now and he's not old enough yet to ask, "Are we there yet?" Hopefully we'll feel like seasoned traveling pros by the time we have a larger family.

After that first international trip at 18 months, my jet-setting suddenly dropped off after the arrival of my little brother, but the family vacations endured. There were trips all through New England and the Maritime Provinces of Canada, the Outerbanks, Niagara Falls and then the memorable train trip to California and back (which my mom did by herself with us two kids in tow) on Amtrak. I will admit I wasn't always thrilled to be on the family vacation, mainly as a teenager, but even if I didn't appreciate it then, I learned to love traveling and the value of exposing your children to new places and new adventures. So sorry Oliver, you can blame it on your grandparents, but I have a long list of family vacation destinations filed away in my mind. Seattle is just the start. And wherever we go, it'll probably be a long car ride, because Air Force One will most likely be overbooked.