Easter

One of the beautiful things that has come out of my dad's marriage to Debbie has been lively and large family gatherings.  The Partenheimers will never rival the size of Chris's family, the Polish version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but when I at one point felt like my family was nearing extinction, witnessing at Easter how much my family has grown was really special. 

I've rarely been home for Easter since I was in high school, but the pace of the weekend seemed as if it were making up for lost time.  We got in dinner at my brother's apartment where we met his lovely girlfriend and her warm and crazy family, we watched a Silly String fight unfold between my step-niece and -nephew, we ran with the kids around the yard as they hunted for Easter eggs, we let Oliver gorge himself on chocolate until his lips and the perimeter of his mouth was smeared with brown, we enjoyed the attention our children attracted from every single little old lady who lived in my grandmother's retirement home where we were staying. By the time we got home on Easter Monday, I wanted a nap. 

It was great to spend time with my family, but the visit was not without some effort given that we had to get our growing family on a plane and fly from Minnesota to Philadelphia.  It wasn't the flight itself that was the difficult part, it was transporting our stuff.  We packed three large suitcases, three carry-ons, a stroller and two car seats - for a four-day trip.  I felt ridiculous when I finally had everything packed up the night before and realized how much we were bringing.  I'm sure we turned some heads at the airport with Chris carrying a backpack and pushing Oliver's stroller with his car seat draped over the back while pulling large suitcase #1 behind him, and me with Soren strapped to my front in the Ergo, carrying a backpack and pushing large suitcase #2 and pulling large suitcase #3 behind me.  I saw no way to avoid the amount of luggage.  We couldn't not bring the car seats (at least we checked them this time) and then there's all the gear and a gazillion changes of clothes kids need.  Our carry-ons duplicated, just on a smaller scale, the contents we'd packed in the suitcases - extra change of clothes, diapers, wipes, toys, books, snacks and so on - because you have to be prepared for anything once you're confined to your seats on a plane.  The only thing low-profile about our packing was that the only stroller we brought was an umbrella stroller instead of the double stroller I sometimes refer to as "the tank."

After everyone and everything made it safely to the airport, we boarded a 7:15 a.m. flight.  While it was painful to get up so early, the morning flight was perfect timing for the kids. We made the slightly-over-two-hour flight to Philadelphia before Oliver's nap time, which meant he was actually in a great mood the whole flight.  We set him up with his coloring books and an iPad loaded with Thomas the Train and Bob the Builder movies and he was happy.  Soren has reached the point where he needs to nap in his crib, so it was a struggle for him to fall asleep in my arms, and he fussed a lot from the time we pulled away from the gate to take-off.  About a minute after take-off though, his eyelids started drooping and 30 seconds later he was out. 

We almost made it to our final destination without one mishap or meltdown when we hit traffic. At 11:30 a.m. on a Friday. With two suddenly overtired and hungry kids screaming in the backseat.  And a Garmin that was determined to detour us through the "real" side of Philadelphia.  Our luck turned around when we ended up driving through the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University campuses and found a parking spot behind a row of gourmet food trucks and across the street from a park.  We ended up eating some of the best food of our trip and Oliver got to run around on a gorgeous sunny spring day.  It was an adventure, but the experience did make me worried about ever attempting to travel by myself with the kids or even how we'd travel with a third kid. 

The rest of the weekend was a whirlwind time with extended family, some of whom were meeting Soren for the first time.  One of the most precious memories for me was watching my grandmother hold her newest great-grandson for the first time.  She'd brought him a book and he sat on her lap and looked intently at the pictures as she read to him.  Then he leaned in and tried to eat the book. 

Another favorite moment was watching my grandmother play with Oliver on the playground we went to the next morning.  She "drove" the bus with him, pushed him on the swings, played hide and seek and, ever the nervous type, helped spot him as he climbed on the play equipment. 

After commenting on how many neat improvements they'd made to the playground over the years, (she used to bring me to this playground when I was little) she examined a spiral ladder and announced she thought it'd be fun to climb. I encouraged her to go for it. "Nah," she said. "Maybe if no one was around," she finished with a bashful smile. 

I Thought Getting There Was Half the Fun

The years I spent abroad epitomize the "getting there is half the fun" type of travel I once did. I was the budget traveler who could leave when I wanted to, travel on a whim and spend days on a train if it meant I could reach far-flung locations like Stockholm and Spain (24- and 48-hour trips, respectively, with numerous layovers and middle-of-the-night border crossings). Lugging my skis, I boarded trains bound for the Alps of Switzerland and Austria, I decided last-minute to spend 12 hours round-trip traveling to and from Warsaw for a weekend visit with friends and was excited when I found out there was a 2:00 a.m. train out of Freiburg, Germany that would get me to Basel, Switzerland in time for the 4:00 a.m. start of Fasnacht (Carnival). I considered wherever the train went to be a doable trip, no matter when I arrived or how tired and disheveled I was upon finally arriving.

Now that I travel with a kid, I can't get to my destination quick enough. I've written a lot about traveling (particularly flying) with young children and how doable it is, but I'll be honest that the actual traveling part of a vacation isn't what I would describe as "fun". While I've never had a major mishap flying with Oliver, (he's never actually screamed the whole time during a flight) the fate of every trip does feel very much out of my hands, no matter what preparations we make. We try to time car trips or flights as best we can around his schedule and we've avoided layovers as much as possible. In fact, we haven't even taken a trip that lasted more than three and a half hours.

Our vacation to New Mexico at the end of March marked a new level in our "traveling with kids" phase when we realized that Oliver isn't as portable as he used to be and that flying with young children, as rewarding as the overall vacation is, does have challenges. I can love traveling and still be in a phase where I wish I could say, "Beam me up Scotty." So here's the honest look at flying with an 18-month-old.

When we realized it would cost of half as much to fly to Albuquerque if we used miles we had accrued on American Airlines, we abandoned my rule of never booking a flight with a layover if an opportunity existed to fly direct. (Delta flies direct to Albuquerque, but American sends you via Dallas.) And even though we debate every time we fly whether to buy Oliver his own seat, we ignored our memories of our last flight with Oliver when he was 15 months old (and had told ourselves then that that trip would be his last time flying on our laps) and decided we could do just one more "infant in lap" flight if it meant Oliver was flying for free.

Minneapolis to Dallas:
If we had tried to pretend that Oliver had gotten smaller and more manageable since our last trip three months ago, we were reminded during the first leg of our trip, from Minneapolis to Dallas, of all the reasons why flying with a toddler is not easy.

Airplanes are notorious for their uneven climate control - you're either baking while waiting for the plane to taxi, or the air blasting on your head from above is annoying and only manages to cool your scalp and nothing else- and having another human being sitting on your lap is nauseatingly hot, so you both arrive at your destination a hot, sweaty mess. (Okay, being pregnant doesn't help with the climate control either.) Oliver isn't content to sit on our laps anymore either and wants to be moving around, which isn't possible during many parts of the flight. Napping is now a logistical challenge, as Oliver is so much taller and takes up one and a half seats when lying down. We had the middle and window seats of a three-seat row and despite trying to pad our laps and such with blankets and jackets, Oliver could not get comfortable enough to sleep. Like he does in his crib, he wanted to move around to find a comfortable position. (Thankfully our row-mate had an 18-month-old grandchild of his own and genuinely didn't seem to mind that he got kicked a few times while I tried to get Oliver to lie in my lap to take a nap.) The inability to nap or get out of our laps when he wanted to led to tantrums, which involve throwing his head back, and unfortunately mouth is in line with the top of his scull. I felt fortunate to have arrived in Dallas without a split lip.

Dallas to Albuquerque:
However, even as I document all the reasons why we need to suck it up and buy Oliver a ticket next time, the Dallas to Albuquerque leg, where we got an entire three-seat row to ourselves and were able to bring Oliver's car seat onboard, wasn't stress-free either. Putting Oliver in his car seat in the car is one of the few transitions Oliver doesn't seem to mind and he's always been relatively content there. Until he was on an airplane. He did not want to sit in his seat and he cried so hard while we sat delayed at the gate, that I became desperate to do anything to quiet him, including letting him sit in my lap, exactly what I had thought we would avoid. I looked over bitterly at the empty car seat and imagined if we had spent hundreds of dollars for that seat. While Oliver knows that the only way to travel in a car is in a car seat, I wondered if he'd associated flying with sitting in mom or dad's lap. By the time we'd reached cruising altitude, I was already uncomfortably hot with Oliver on my lap and he no longer wanted to sit still. After one head-fling back in a fit of defiance by Oliver, I decided it was better now than never to try to teach him that he sits in his own seat when flying. I had a stern word with him about this being what was expected of him, which probably sounded more fitting for a ten-year-old than an 18-month-old, but it worked! He quieted down! He didn't sit there the whole flight, but having my personal space back made the flight much more enjoyable.

Albuquerque to Dallas:
Our flight home from Albuquerque had an equal number of successes and challenges. The Albuquerque to Dallas leg was short enough (about an hour) and timed perfectly with Oliver's schedule that his pre-nap good mood easily lasted the flight. We had a two-seat row to ourselves and Chris and I passed Oliver back and forth between our laps, and with the arm rest up, Oliver could sit cozily between us in the row. The flight went so smoothly that I actually began to question what was so difficult about flying with a toddler.

But we had only made it as far as Dallas and I knew our luck was about to run out. As we prepared to land right around Oliver's typical nap time, Chris and I examined our less-than-ideal strategies for getting in Oliver's nap for the day. Ideally he would nap during the two-hour layover, but we'd have to walk with the stroller the whole time for him to even have a chance at sleeping, and even then he wouldn't be able to sleep for the two and a half hours he needs to be rested/in a good mood. And if could fall asleep, despite the overstimulation of the airport, it would take him awhile to do so and then he'd just wake up when we started the boarding process. He would more likely sleep in our arms during the second flight, but the chances of him making it that long without a meltdown were also slim. Sigh...we were pretty much screwed.

Dallas to Minneapolis:
We did try to get him to nap during the layover, but unsurprisingly, with no success. We even tried to give him Benadryl, a tactic that had been so successful when I flew by myself with him at Christmas, but he refused it. By the time we boarded the plane, he was clearly exhausted and we started to repeat our experience of the Minneapolis to Dallas leg from a week before. We tried again with the Benadryl, which he took, but then our plane got delayed over 30 minutes at the gate, and with the aircraft in the park position and the cabin lights on, Oliver just could not sleep no matter how much he desperately wanted (needed) to and he expressed his frustration with punctuated screams and flailing limbs. Shortly after take-off, the effect of the vibrations and noise of the jet engines combined with the Benadryl were finally enough lull him to sleep. Chris and I were so relieved even if Oliver only napped for 45 minutes. He wasn't in a stellar mood when he awoke, but the shut-eye was enough to make him appear like a happy, well-adjusted kid. It took two adults to keep him entertained with empty beverage service cups and the emergency procedure cards in the seat-back pocket, but we were more relaxed knowing that we were getting close to Minneapolis.

Despite the tense moments we had during portions of our travel, my faith in my fellow passengers was continuously buoyed. In all the trips I've taken, not once have I had a situation where a passenger has even shot me a dirty look. After the blizzard in the Northeast last December, Oliver and I had to be redirected on a flight via Memphis and were put in first class as the airlines desperately tried to transport passengers who had been delayed for days. Our second flight was hours past his bedtime and he cried hard for an hour as I tried to get him to sleep. I felt bad for the passengers around me who had actually paid to travel first class, only to sit next to a screaming baby. Yet as we taxied towards the gate, finally in Philadelphia, an older man next to me turned to me and said, "Wow, none of my four kids ever traveled that well."

Then the flight attendants helped me carry my bags so I could safely step down the steep set of stairs of the commuter jet onto the jetway with Oliver strapped to my back and one of the pilots jumped out of the cockpit and followed me down and fetched Oliver's car seat, which had been gate-checked and left for me at the bottom of the stairs.

Even if the majority of travelers aren't traveling with young children, most of them have or have had young children in their lives. When people smile at your child, ask questions and even comment, "What a good traveler!" you know they remember what it's like.

And somehow, Oliver always arrived with a smile on his face and I was left thinking, "That wasn't so bad."

Maybe it was kind of fun.

Traveling as a Family of Three

I wasn't going to be slowed down by kids. Heck, I was even still going to be hip while keeping up the pace! (Ignoring the fact that before Oliver, I was not hip.) In my opinion, it was simply mind over matter whether having children affects life as you know it pre-kids - your social life, your job, your hobbies, your fitness level, your style and for me, your desire to travel, see new places and reconnect with old friends. You just carve out time in your day to style your hair, you throw the baby in the stroller and off you go on your daily run, and why would you not want to show your kids the world while they can still fly for free on your lap? Since the space needed to address my previous naivete and now, post-kid reality, would require a separate blog post for each of these subjects, I'll start with how having a baby has affected how I travel.

While doing some research on flying and traveling with kids in preparation for our spring break trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico, I came across articles written by parents who've bus-tripped down through Mexico with a toddler or backpacked in the Balkans with a five-month-old. I appreciated their positive attitudes and encouragement about traveling with little ones, their tips and their first-hand proof that some people can and will continue to travel after they have kids. (And will travel more adventurously than I had even pre-kids.) But I want to be the realistic voice to expectant parents that how you will travel will change. No, your adventurous life won't be over just because you have kids, and you won't need to forgo traveling until the kids are grown, but traveling will be different.

The most overlooked impediment to traveling might not be the baby itself, but the cost. Oliver can fly for free until age two, but after that, we'll need to buy him a ticket at adult price. Add a second kid and the flight costs for your family vacation automatically double. Hence, I took quite a few trips on an airplane when I was really young, even to Paris when I was a year and a half old. By the time I turned two, my mom was pregnant with my brother and we never flew on a vacation again until late in elementary school when my mom, in a complete reverse of character, flew us to Disney World.

The cost of airline tickets aside, there are other costs associated with adding another human being to your traveling party, even if he only weights 12 pounds. We've rented cars for trips we previously wouldn't have rented a car, or rented a bigger, more expensive car to accommodate the stroller, the extra suitcase and a passenger space taken up by a car seat. We pay baggage fees since Oliver's stuff and ours would never fit in two carry-ons. We've invested in new gear, like a lightweight stroller or new baby carrier. Forever one to pack my own meals (and then extra provisions in case of delays) while traveling to avoid the unhealthy, overprice airport options, sometimes the baby's carry-on gear and the baby himself have left me buying lunch at the airport because I ran out of room to pack my own. As Oliver grew and his sleep schedule solidified, we made another financial decision that was the tipping point between paying more or not traveling at all and that was to spring for a one- or two-bedroom accommodation over a hotel room that we'd find ourselves sitting quietly in in the dark after Oliver's 6:30 p.m. bedtime.

Even if you had the room in your fairly-predictable pre-kid budget for travel, kids result in a lot of expenses on a daily or annual basis. Parents may reduce their hours to meet family demands, or a parent forgoes an income to stay home, and suddenly even frugal-minded parents find the expenses for food, clothing, doctor's visits, (especially if you have a health "savings" account plan) the fee for a class here or the family museum membership there, adding up. Even if you realize you still have the money leftover for travel, or can figure out how to budget for travel, I don't fault couples for holding off on discretionary big-ticket spending until they get a better handle on their new post-baby budget.

Even if it's decided that we can afford a vacation, we do a cost-benefit analysis on some level for any proposed trip. Sure, everyone does this. A friend found a "cheap" ticket to Germany and debated on Facebook whether it was worth it to go for a four-day weekend. After many sounded in with a flat "No!" she agreed that after such a long trip and then recovering from jet lag, she would barely have any time left to do much, so it wasn't worth the expense.

So I find myself doing rough mental calculations about the increased cost - financially, mentally and physically - of traveling a long distance with a toddler, renting the car, paying extra for accommodations, preparing and packing, etc. Chris would love to go on a ski vacation, but given that someone would have to stay behind each day with Oliver, it's not worth the money and trouble to fly to Colorado for one of us to sit in the lodge half the time. So really any vacation that focuses on sports or active adventures are out, for a few years at least. Weekend trips are also mostly out too, even to Philadelphia to visit family, which is a direct, two-and-a-half hour flight, since Oliver wears himself out from any length of trip and needs a day on either end to recover. Instead we choose destinations that we can still enjoy even at a slower pace, and that we enjoy for our own sakes. I'll factor in "showing Oliver the world" when he'll remember the trip.

When choosing your destination with your kids' needs in mind and making modifications to your daily itinerary, of course traveling is still possible, and even fun and relaxing. Oliver forces us to slow down and not try to pack too much into a day, even if that means not seeing everything we wanted to see. I have happy memories from the couple of trips we've taken with him and haven't felt like we missed out because we skipped a museum or a sight. After a couple of busy touristy days in Seattle, we decided to give Oliver a day to just be a baby and hung out in our rented apartment and then took a walk down the street to a gorgeous park where Oliver got to crawl in the grass instead of be strapped into his stroller. We never experienced any of Seattle's nightlife, even though we stayed in a neighborhood known for it, and rarely ate out. But our apartment was homey, the grocery store to stock up on the necessities for a home-cooked meal was three blocks away and by not staying out late, we always woke up rested.

I do still dream of traveling without kids. Of moving through the airport unencumbered, traveling with nothing but a carry-on. Of reading, listening to my ipod or doing my Sudoku on the flight - without entertaining someone traveling on my lap. Of arriving in New York City, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Washington D.C., or even Shreveport, Louisiana, and if you'll really let me dream, Berlin, southern Germany, Vienna or Copenhagen, to see old friends. Of staying out past 6:30 p.m. and sleeping in past 6:30 a.m. Of eating in nice restaurants and not having to apologize to the server for crumbs on the floor. Of sightseeing without regard to nap time. As often as my parents vacationed with my brother and me, now I know why we were sometimes left us with the grandparents.

Earning His Wings

With five roundtrip plane trips behind him, Oliver is well-traveled for a kid his age. And as the parent who has flown with him every time, I've suddenly become the go-to person among some of my friends on advice for traveling with babies. Which is ironic considering how anxious I was prior to my first trip with Oliver, (at three months) as I had no idea what it was like to travel with an extra person I'd be solely responsible for, I did not know how Oliver would react and I was traveling alone.

Despite how much I had traveled prior to having a baby, my first flight with Oliver felt like a venture into the unknown. I consulted the airline's website and tried to find advice online, but came up with only general information. My moms groups ended up being my source of moral support and tips, especially since some women had traveled on long international flights (and they lived to tell about it!). That first flight to Philadelphia and back happened with not even a minor mishap, but I did learn a lot about flying with babies that I thought would be helpful to share with other parents.

Toddlers and younger are my frame of reference for traveling with kids, so that is what my travel advice is based on. But the little information I found about traveling with kids seemed to be written for parents of newborns or kids who no longer needed high chairs, sippy cups or naps. With the minimum time lapse between flights with Oliver being two months, I discovered that our experience was totally different each time and became more difficult as he slept less and become more mobile. As a newborn, Oliver slept in my arms and woke just to nurse, by our trip to Seattle in August, we were packing finger foods and bottles and toys he could amuse himself with in our laps, and just two months later, I had a baby who could crawl and didn't want to be confined to our seat. The observation by a mom of an older toddler I talked with on our flight back from Seattle seems to be accurate - traveling with kids gets harder before it gets easier. And at 15 months, Oliver is far from being out of the difficult-to-travel-with stage.

Newborn stage
Babies under three months are the easiest to travel with because they're small and will sleep anywhere. As they're not very interactive at this age, much of their awake time is spent eating and hopefully the rest of the time they sleep and you can enjoy a book or the onboard movie.

Between three and six months can also be relatively easy if your baby isn't crawling or trying to crawl yet, as they're likely to be content sitting in your lap and batting at any toy you dangle in front of their faces and cooing at the adoring flight attendants. If your baby is like Oliver, who quickly put himself on a nap schedule and outgrew being able to sleep with a lot of noise and other distractions, I found that wearing my nursing cover and letting it drape over his head as I held him in my arms was enough to block visual stimulation and light and allow him to get some semblance of a nap.

Even if babies aren't exclusively breastfed, formula can be pre-measured and packed in ziplock bags or a formula dispenser and you can even pre-fill bottles with water if you don't want to have to ask a flight attendant to fill it for you.

This "easy" age is counteracted by the fact that as a parent of a young baby, you're probably sleep-deprived and overwhelmed by the fear of not packing enough diapers or having to be somewhere on time, especially for an airline departure. That first flight with Oliver was also the first time I knew I would have to breastfeed in public. I had never used a nursing cover before, but I bought one just for the trip because I preferred to ease myself into public nursing. While it took a number of weeks to fully become comfortable with the practice, I was surprise by what nursing in a confined public space did for my confidence.

Diaper bag essentials:

- enough diapers and wipes to account for delays
- change of clothes for baby
- nursing cover
- spare shirt for you - Who wants to spend the next couple of hours wearing spit-up?
- baby carrier - once the stroller is folded up ready for gate check, keep your hands free for toting carry-ons by wearing your baby
- car seat
- stroller


Pre-mobile stage
Babies who aren't crawling or learning to crawl are still manageable to fly with on your lap because they stay relatively content there. You can entertain them with small plush toys or rattles, or whatever is around you, like empty pretzel wrappers or the cards and magazines in the seat-back pocket. But they're awake for longer stretches and still active, even if they're not mobile, so they need constant attention. Thus, there's nothing relaxing about traveling with a baby!

By this stage in their lives, napping away from the crib and with too much surrounding stimulation may be too difficult for an older baby. The seatback on Oliver's stroller reclines fully and we had some success in getting him to fall asleep for at least a short nap while walking the concourses. Once on the plane, we tried the nursing cover again, but by a year old he was so much bigger and it was no longer effective.

The biggest change with babies six months and older is the introduction of solid foods. Since we did baby-led weaning, I fretted about what to bring to feed to Oliver that wasn't messy and actually considered feeding him purees for the first time. But younger babies, especially those under nine months, aren't on a particular meal schedule, and they'll happily subsist off of dry snack foods, in addition to the breastmilk or formula that still actually accounts for the majority of their daily nutritional needs. Any structure of meal and snack times your baby has developed over the months since introducing solids will probably be moot while traveling and I discovered that a snack trap full of Cheerios, which Oliver plucked away at one-by-one, is a wonderful time-killer. We bought a new bib, one made of silicone (easily washable and dryable) with a food catcher built in so he wouldn't spill bits of food (in theory) and let him gorge himself on the Puffs, yogurt melts, dry cereal and crackers and teething biscuits we brought.

After some really embarrassing incidents shortly after the crack-down on bringing liquids and gels through airport security where breastfeeding moms were forced to dump their pumped breastmilk, TSA now bends over backwards to accommodate parents toting formula or breastmilk through security. But the best-kept TSA secret is that exceptions don't stop with breastmilk or formula. You can bring any foods through security if you say they're for your child. They don't even have to be unopened or in their original containers. Instead of paying $2+ for a container of yogurt each for Oliver and me, I bring a whole milk yogurt for Oliver and a fat-free for me. Declare any foods or beverages that don't meed the under-3-oz. rule and coolers with ice packs and TSA will take them aside after they've gone through the scanner to test the outside for explosives residue. They won't open anything.

Diaper bag essentials:

- a small toy or two
- dry snacks in a snack trap
- bib with a food catcher
- change of clothes - sure they could still have a blow-out, but Oliver manages to come off every flight with the remains of his snack caked to his face and clothes

Mobile stage
By the time your child is crawling, flying becomes more difficult, as they are getting to the age where they just want to move, move, move and get into everything. I let Oliver burn off as much energy in the terminal and then try to occupy him with snacks between boarding and take-off. Hopefully the fasten seatbelt light has been turned off by the time Oliver gets antsy and I can let him crawl in the aisle.

Not every flight has gone this smoothly. There have been times when were stuck in our seat when he wanted to be crawling around. I thought he was on the verge of a full-blown tantrum, but even though the time spent trying to soothe a seemingly unsoothable kid with songs, stories and the cookies handed to me from the sympathetic flight attendant seemed futile, toddlers do understand more than it appears and Oliver seemed to eventually understand that we really did just have to sit there and he calmed down, somewhat. At least I don't think anyone on that flight wrote an e-mail to the airline demanding that kids be banned from airplanes.

As any parent knows, the reason a kid is most likely throwing a tantrum is because he or she is tired. By the time Oliver dropped to one nap a day around 13-14 months of age, he relied on that 2.5-hour nap and understandably couldn't go without. As I've alluded to earlier in this post, Oliver is a predictable sleeper, which is a blessing, but he also does not just nap on the go and is a mess without proper sleep. He is simply a kid who needs his sleep. And that left me in a bind, because there is no flight short enough to allow us enough time to get to the airport, check in, board, arrive at our destination and get him into a crib all between either his morning wake-up and nap, or nap wake-up and bedtime.

Benadryl was my savior. Before anyone cries foul about my off-label use of the drug, I did discuss it with Oliver's pediatrician, who agreed it was a reasonable scenario for medicinally inducing sleep (for a baby over six months of age) and a pharmacist calculated the dosage based on Oliver's age and weight. When our direct flight right after Christmas was canceled due to weather, we had to take a connecting flight via Memphis. The timing of the first flight happened to be perfect because Oliver woke up from a nap before we needed to leave for the airport. As we killed time in the airport in Memphis, I could tell that Oliver's energy and excitement over new surroundings were starting to go downhill, quickly. He ate little for dinner and eventually didn't even want to sip on his milk. He just wanted to sleep, but he couldn't. I thought if I could just get him to hang on until take-off, the dimmed lights and vibration of the plane would soothe him to sleep. Even though I had him wrapped in a blanket and snuggled in my arms, he just could not sleep and he cried out in frustration. I felt sorry for him, the passengers around me and myself. Sympathetic flight attendants and seatmates offered up suggestions for cheering him up, but all were useless, because honestly, he was just tired and wanted to sleep. Once I'd tried everything to help him fall asleep, I finally gave him Benadryl and he was asleep within five minutes and didn't wake up until an hour later when we'd arrived at the gates and the cabin lights were turned back on. So yeah, Benadryl will remain on our packing list.

As your child approaches a year old, you may be making the transition to cow's milk. You have a couple of options besides adding a cooler of pre-filled bottles of milk to your most-likely unmanageable volume of carry-on. If your baby already drinks soy milk, or likes the taste of soy milk, you can buy 8 oz. shelf-stable packages, similar to the juice boxes from your lunchbox youth. The aseptic packaging doesn't require refrigeration until opened, so it's convenient to throw extra 8 oz. containers in the diaper bag. More difficult to find are the same packages with shelf-stable cow's milk.

If you have a long trip, powders are easier to pack in larger quantities. Powdered whole milk is also difficult to find; although, it's available on Amazon. The easiest though, especially if you're still trying to transition your baby to cow's milk and are still mixing milk with formula, is to use a toddler formula. Even Target makes a house brand of this formula designed for children 9-24 months. While the majority of babies do not need special toddler formula, this is a great alternative when traveling.

Checking In
If your child is traveling in your lap, make sure your boarding pass has "infant in arms" printed on it. This designation insures that you will be able to gate check items and alerts airline employees with access to your itinerary that you may need special accommodations (such as in case of a rebooking due to weather delays). You may not be able to designate you are traveling with a baby when you book your ticket online, but you can go into your itinerary after you've purchased your ticket and add your child.

Even if you're flying alone, having someone accompany you to baggage check is a big help. Gone are the days when you can fly with just a carry-on, so count on checking at least one bag. Once your bag is checked, you'll be able to manage the stroller and your carry-ons on your own.

Some airports have family lanes at security and even if you don't think you need a low-pressure line where you don't feel guilty about taking your good old time, inquire anyway. I've approached some dauntingly-long security lines, but the family lane might as well be labeled VIP and be corned off with a velvet rope, because once TSA sees you with a child, they'll open up the family lane for you and you'll find yourself at the front of the line.

Your stroller and car seat will need to go through the x-ray machine and your little ones will need to remove shoes and jackets just like the adults, so be strategic about the order of operations. I leave Oliver in his stroller while I send everything else through the x-ray machine. I put anything food or beverages I need to "declare" in a separate bin. I'm able to fold up Oliver's stroller and hoist it onto the conveyor belt with one hand, but inevitably, someone offers to do it for me. Meanwhile, you will be able to walk through the metal detector holding your baby.

If you're used to breezing through security, bringing a baby and all his or her gear through can leave you feeling overwhelmed, or when you see your possessions taking up the entire conveyor belt, at least like you overpacked. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how helpful the TSA employees were and I've never felt rushed.


Car seats - If you do not having a car seat waiting for you on the other end, it may be easier (and cheaper, say if you would otherwise have to rent one from the car rental agency) to bring your own. Airlines allow you, free of charge, (believe it or not, some services are still free) to check your car seat with your luggage or at the gate.

Chris and I have argued about which makes more sense. He'd prefer not to have to lug the car seat through the airport, but since I had figured out how to strap the seat to the back of Oliver's stroller, I was more at ease dealing with the slight inconvenience if it meant I knew the seat wouldn't be lost. That is until our last flight when we got off the plane and only our stroller was waiting for us in the causeway between the plane and the terminal. A ground employee searched the cargo hold and still couldn't find the car seat. I was afraid that with all the strollers and car seats needing to be loaded on our plane in Philadelphia, (there were a lot of kids on our flight) perhaps ours had been forgotten and was never even loaded on the plane. The gate agent assured me that the airport had car seats to loan, something had not known about, but it turns out a loaner wasn't needed. As we waited at the baggage carousel, we looked up to see a ground crew member walking towards us with our awol car seat. The gate check tag had gotten ripped off and therefore it hadn't been pulled off the plane, which was headed on to Albuquerque after an hour layover, when we landed in Minneapolis. Although I consider this incident an anomaly, now that I know that the airport has extra car seats on hand, I may feel more comfortable checking it with my luggage.

If you opt to gate check, ask the gate agent for a gate check tag. Whether you gate check or not, bring a cover for the car seat to keep it from getting dirty. (A heavy-duty trash bag works well.) Just make sure the luggage or gate check tag is affixed to the car seat and sticking out of the cover.

Strollers
You have the same options with a stroller as with a car seat. No matter how old or young, big or small your child is, or whether you think you'll be more comfortable using a baby carrier, because that's what you use at home anyway, I vote for bringing a stroller. (And I still bring my Ergo too.) Even newborn babies start to feel heavy if you've been carrying them for hours and especially if you're traveling alone, as I have done many times, you will welcome the break. You will also need to go to the bathroom at some point. It doesn't take a big imagination to realize that answering the call of nature is easier with your child in a stroller rather than strapped to you.

Strollers also come with cargo space so you don't also have to schlepp the diaper bag along with your kid.

If your baby has started solids, the stroller doubles as a high chair. Unless Oliver is strapped down during meal and snack times, he'll crawl all over the place. Even though our stroller doesn't have a snack tray, he sits in it to eat when we're traveling and I hand him piece of food.

Depending upon your destination, a stroller may not be the most practical. When we traveled to Seattle, we were renting a compact and would be getting on and off buses while sightseeing in the city. Although I'd flown with our large Graco travel system stroller, we finally invested in Chicco Liteway, chosen for its light weight, durability, smaller size (both when folded and unfolded) and fully reclining seat (for naps on the go).

As with the car seat, you'll want to think about how to keep your stroller clean while in the cargo hold. Sometimes I've wrapped it in plastic, other times I just take a chance it's not raining when they unload the luggage. The best option is to buy a stroller cover, which not only keeps it clean, but provides a bit of protection against the inevitable bumps and jostling the stroller will endure.

Buying a seat for your child
If you can afford to buy a seat for your child, do so. It's the safest for your baby and most convenient for you, even though it means bringing your own car seat on board. Your child may sleep better in a car seat and might not feel the urge to try to roam if he or she is strapped in.

Before you buy a seat for your baby, make sure you have a car seat that is approved for use on an aircraft. A sticker affixed to the car seat should say something along the lines of "This car seat is approved for aircraft travel." (It will not say "FAA-aproved.") Next you should call the airline and ask about additional requirements for car seats. For instance, a car seat may be approved for aircraft use, but the airline you are traveling on may have restrictions on how wide the car seat may be.

Consider the weight and size of the car seat if purchasing with airline travel in mind. Our Combi Coccoro weighs 12 pounds and is considered a lightweight car seat, but I can't imagine having to lug an even heavier one. We connect the LATCH straps and use that to attach to the back of the stroller. Even so, the car seat barely cleared the ground and until our son surpassed 20 pounds, we had to be careful that the car seat didn't pull the stroller down.

If you don't own an appropriate car seat, you can purchase an inexpensive one to use on the plane and then it can become your back-up car seat for the grandparent's or babysitter's car when not traveling. You can buy an Evenflo Chase for under $60.

For all I've written about buying a seat for your baby, we have yet to buy a seat for Oliver and none of my friends with similar-age kids has either. Now that Oliver is bigger and more active, we are considering buying him a seat on our next trip, only because he's becoming a handful to have on our laps.

Final Pep Talk
It's easy to imagine all that could go horribly wrong flying with a baby, (namely, your kid screaming the entire flight) but the reality is, your trip will go relatively smoothly. Your fellow travelers and those overworked airline employees really do have a soft spot for kids and you'll be surprised how much strangers are willing to help out. Sure, there's a chance your baby will need a diaper change the second the plane is about to take off and it's nearly guaranteed your baby will cry at some point, but as parents we deal with stressful situations with our kids daily, so we'll manage with whatever new situations are presented to us while traveling. And even though your baby screamed during the plane's descent, despite your desperate attempt to adhere to the most oft-heard advice about nursing your baby during take-off and landing, you'll step off the plane, realize you and your kid made it in one piece and will think that all went pretty well.

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.