The Nomad Life

Do you ever feel like you just say no all day long? I hate hearing it come out of my mouth almost as much as Ez hates hearing it. Ez is handling our nomad life like a champ for the most part but the meltdowns have slowly been increasing daily. The great nightly teeth brushing battle, for example. I've completely given up on the idea of making it through a complete day without losing my patience. My new goal is just to replenish my patience quickly and move on. So while I don't have much advice for long term travel with a toddler, these are the tips that seem to help us. 

Pick my battles. I know this is old news and sounds obvious, but it's easy to sink into a routine of wrestling with your toddler over every little thing. And when I say you, I mean me. So lately I've been trying to say yes more. I've heard tales of parents that only say yes to their kids for a day. I'm pretty sure that idea wasn't meant for toddlers though. Obviously teeth brushing is non-negotiable. But for other things, like dawdling at breakfast or spending a little longer at the park, if Ez plants his feet and decides he's not leaving, I've been giving a five minute heads up, and then settling down to really enjoy those last five minutes before we head off to the next task. This hasn't eliminated meltdowns, but a lot of times Ez will happily move on. And that's a whole lot better than trying to transport a flailing angry toddler. 

One on one time. Declan and I have all kinds of built in time together because he nurses all day long, but getting time alone with Ez takes more effort. We're six weeks into this parents of two thing, and as I learn to adjust my expectations accordingly I'm figuring out that one on one time doesn't have to be elaborate. As much as I would love to spend an entire afternoon alone with Ez, for now a few minutes here and there makes a huge difference in Ez's attitude. Whether it's sitting on the ground doing puzzles for a few minutes while Declan naps or extra snuggles before bed. 

Keep some semblance of routine. Unfortunately our routine became pretty nonexistent late in my pregnancy, so I've had to improvise. We did bring a few familiar toys and movies, which has helped. What works for us is getting out of the house before naptime. Somewhere Ez can run around while I push Declan in his stroller. We like the park, the book store (with the toy trains), the mall playground, and the splash pad. As crazy as it feels to head out in public with two fussy kids, a change of scenery usually turns all of our cranky moods around. And if I'm really lucky they both fall asleep in the stroller. That's the stuff mom dreams are made of.

Ask for help. I've been lucky to have lots of help while we're visiting with family, and it has made all the difference in the world. Ez is sufficiently distracted and entertained which means I actually get to shower daily and blog every now and then. 

Embrace the chaos. Jump on the hotel bed. Eat extra dessert. Explore new parks. Crack open an ice cold beer for no good reason (this one's for the parents). Even though we're not technically on vacation, we may as well embrace being away from home and live it up.

Take it from Frozen and Let it Go. Buttons get pressed. Tantrums get thrown. Patience gets lost. Just move on quickly and laugh about the craziness. If you need help laughing about parenthood just look up Jim Gaffigan or Louis CK. They totally get that toddlers are crazy (lovable, but still crazy) and it's always nice to know you're not alone. 

We're Back!

As you can see from the map, we covered a lot of ground in the last week (about a thousand miles, if you wanna count). Ez and I started our roadtrip on Tuesday, after his Gymboree class, which thankfully wore him out enough that he fell asleep almost as soon as we got on the freeway, and he slept about a hundred miles. We decided to burn off some energy at Target, where I made the huge rookie mistake of simultaneously buying myself a roadtrip CD and Ez the most annoying fire truck toy on earth. One of the ones with three settings for various siren sounds, which effectively drowned out any other sounds, including my CD. 

Ez stayed awake and happy for about a hundred miles, playing with his firetruck and eating a quesadilla, then he got super fussy, so we stopped at yet another Target. You can go ahead and add Target to my arsenal of Toddler roadtrip tips. Since I didn't know the areas where we were stopping, I didn't want to stop at any potentially shady parks, so I let Ez run around Target (he loves playing tag in the clothing section - I'm sure the other shoppers/employees loved us.) After Ez was tired enough to want to be carried, we hit the road again, and he almost immediately fell asleep. So it turns out Target has many uses besides just luring me to buy stuff I have to have but don't really need. 

We made it to my mom's house after about seven hours on the road. Ez immediately got to work dictating that the uncles and Grampa sit on the floor and play cars. He's very particular about where everyone has to sit while they're playing. He's a natural born leader ;)  My mom made an amazing dinner of homemade mac n' cheese, garlic bread, asparagus, and lemon blueberry cake. Of course all Ez wanted to eat was watermelon. Silly boy. 

My allergies/sinus infection were still going strong so I didn't try to visit all the friends and family I'd normally want to see while we were there. That left some free time for my mom, my brother, and I to spend a day shopping, eating out, and getting our nails done (just me and my mom, my brother opted out of that one), while Ez spent time with Grampa and my other brother. Win/win for everyone!

On Thursday afternoon Ez and I continued on our way to San Jose, to meet up with Joe who had been at a convention all week. We spent a few days exploring the bay area (more on that to come) before heading back to visit family on Saturday afternoon. Ez got to meet his great-grandparents (Joe's grandpa) for the very first time. After sitting in the car everyday for almost a week, sitting in a restaurant for lunch wasn't high on Ez's agenda, so after throwing a mini tantrum he eventually got out of his high chair and played a rousing game of stealing people's mints (at the end of lunch) and redistributing them around the table. It was actually kind of cute. When we got back to the great-grandparents' house, Ez was much more in his element, scouring the backyard for sticks and rocks and being his general cute self. I'm sure next time we're there Ez will want to bee-line for the backyard to throw rocks in the river, which was probably one of his favorite activities of the entire trip.

After lunch it was time to head back to Modesto for dinner with my friends. It was pretty nice having a child-free evening out, where we could linger over food and conversation instead of cramming a sit-down meal into the timeframe of a toddler's attention span. 

The next morning we were on the road again, headed back home. It was such a fun trip, but we crammed a lot into a short amount of time. I'm already looking forward to making at least one more (leisurely) trip back before June so Ez and I can visit more with friends/family. As you can see, Ez was pretty tuckered out by the end of the week:

Pants-less in Toddlerville

It goes without saying that you pack an extra change of clothes pretty much every time you leave the house with a toddler. If you're thinking worst-case scenarios, you'll probably pack two. Not to mention clothes for whatever possible weather change might happen. Whenever my parents take Ez for a day trip to Disneyland, I usually send him off with a duffle bag full of "essentials" and they question how long I expect him to be gone for. This weekend we took a mini family getaway and spent one night in San Diego. One night and Ez wound up needing 5 pairs of pants. Five pairs! How is that possible, you may ask? (Though I'm sure you already know, if you've got a toddler.)

The first pair gets soaked in poo less than halfway through a two-hour drive. Along with the carseat, of course. After a make-do wipe down of the carseat, and a new pair of pants you're on your way again. Check into the hotel, smell poo, check diaper, and find poo creeping out the diaper and up the back. Now down 2 pairs of pants and 1 shirt. Not to mention having to handwash the carseat cover in the hotel sink and dry with a hair dryer. 

The next morning, while at breakfast, there's another poo explosion, which means we're on our last pair of pants for the trip. With the way things have been going, we don't want to gamble on that last pair of pants lasting the whole day, so we stock up on two pairs of clearance pants at Target. 

Next stop: the zoo. About twenty paces away from our car, on the way to the zoo entrance, Ez dumps a full cup of water all over himself. Now we're onto one of the emergency, recently-purchased pairs of pants, as well as another top. So, to sum it up: Ez has worn 5 pairs of pants and 4 tops in 24 hours, and we're down to our last emergency pair of pants. Thankfully the clothing catastrophes stopped there, but the amount of clothing changes that kid went through was unreal. We kept joking that he thought he was presenting at the Oscars or something.

Here's my basic list for Ez and I. I thought for sure I was overpacking on Ez's part, and it turns out we needed more!

Probably should also mention that parents are often caught in the crossfire with these poo explosions, so Joe and I should have brought an extra change of clothes as well. Live and learn. How much do you usually pack on a typical outing with your kid(s)?

Despite all the crazy messes, we really did have a great time! Expect lots of zoo and food pictures in the near future.

5 Tips for Toddler Roadtrips

Having made the 300 mile roadtrip to my hometown twice in the past two weeks, I think I've figured out a few tricks that made the trip a bit smoother. On our first trip, Joe was there as well, and let me just say it's a whole different game when there are two adults vs. one. So these tips will be for solo parents, who have to somehow keep a toddler entertained while focusing on driving. Phone apps are out, because if your kid's anything like mine, he loves pressing the home button every few minutes then crying because the app disappeared. So these are all tips that can be done without taking your eyes off the road or contorting your arms in unnatural ways to reach behind you.

1. Snacks - and plenty of them! I know this one is obvious, but one thing I did learn after a few short practice runs around town before the big trip is that snacks should be packed in small portions in LOTS of ziplock baggies, as opposed to filling one baggie to the brim (or even halfway, for that matter). According to my careful calculations 90% of the contents of each bag will wind up smooshed in the carseat, or on the floor, and about half of the time the entire bag winds up on the floor. Lesson learned: keep lots of snack bags within arms reach so you can just grab a new one and hand it back as needed (ie - every few minutes). Also, Ez's hand dexterity isn't at full capacity just yet, so I make sure to open the bags and roll down the sides a few times to make it easier for him to grab his grape halves or goldfish.

2. Mystery Grab Bag of Toys: Since it's right after Christmas it just so happens that we are fully stocked on new toys that haven't gotten too much use yet, and therefore haven't lost their novelty. I just threw a bunch of random toys in a bag and kept it within arm's reach so that I could hand them back one at a time as the other ones got dropped or lost their allure. Another little trick that worked surprisingly well was to put a bunch of little toys in a plastic cup and give him the whole cup to play with. Not sure why kids like removing things from containers so much, but apparently that's a game in itself. One thing I wished I'd brought more of was board books. I just happened to have one floating around the car, and that kept Ez entertained for a decent amount of time, although I did have to improvise and pretend to read the book while he turned the pages. Thankfully he didn't seem to mind my poorly made-up plot.

3. Car Games: This really depends on the age of the kid, but the two games that kept Ez most occupied were "Spot the Big Rig" and "What Sound Does a ____ Make?" (Ez got the biggest kick out of monkey and goat sounds, in case you were wondering.) I resorted to these tactics about two-thirds of the way through our trip, when most of the toys were scattered on the floor and Ez was all snacked out. I Spy is a classic hit for older kids.

 4. Timing is Everything: We began our trip right after Ez's Gymboree class. Forty-five minutes of climbing and sliding and crawling and running meant that Ez was asleep within ten minutes of getting in the car. We made it about 120 miles before Ez woke up, and I doubt the trip would have gone nearly as smoothly without burning off that excess energy and getting a good nap in.

5. Plan More Frequent Stops: Pre-Ez I would have stopped once for gas, picked up a taco bell bean burrito to eat in the car, and then driven straight through. But I'll take a 6.5 hour trip with a happy toddler over a 5 hour trip with a crying toddler any day. All in all we stopped twice, for a total of an hour and fifteen minutes. Once for lunch and once for gas and to stretch our legs and get a change of scenery. My guess is the stopping only becomes more frequent once your toddler is potty trained.

1. Snacks 2. Board Books 3. My Busy Books Toys 4. Bonus Toy from Gas Station

And probably the most important tip of all is that you're gonna patience. Lots of it. Even when you turn around and see a certain someone purposely dumping a bag of cheerios all over the car. Try to remember that it's no fun being strapped in a car for hours at a time. Messes can be cleaned up. The most important thing is that everyone arrives safely.

We've still got our return trip ahead of us, so feel free to share any other tried and true tips that have worked for you! I'm almost scared to publish this because Ez could switch it up and decide that none of these tips work on the ride home, which will make for a fun six+ hours.

Linking up for:

5 on Friday

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oh hey Friday!

Flying With a Toddler: Part 2

You might remember from my Traveling Cross Country with a Toddler post that I was a little apprehensive about spending 8 hours crammed into a tiny airplane seat with Ez on my lap. I even called Southwest to see how much it would cost to get Ez his own infant-priced seat, which is supposedly discounted, but was actually going to be $200 more than my ticket. WTF?? So obviously that was a no-go. It turns out I didn't need to worry at all. Ez did great AND he had his own seat on all four flights (for free)! It was basically best case scenarios the whole way. One thing that could have been a real hassle but wound up working to our favor was the crazy cold, snowy weather in Denver, where we had a layover. A lot of people on our flight wouldn't have been able to make their connecting flights and wound up waiting till the next day to fly, which means more empty seats for us! And then the flight from Denver to Boston had a ton of empty seats, probably for the same reason. 

As you can see from the picture below, it was cold in Denver. Like -10 degrees cold. A friend who lives in Denver says that only happens a few times a year, so I guess we're just lucky like that ;)

For the past few weeks, Ez has been all about airplanes. Whenever he hears one he stops what he's doing and points up at the sky and then waves. It's the cutest thing. I wasn't really sure if he would understand that we were actually flying on a plane, but I think he did. We sat near the wing and he loved watching out the window during takeoff and landing. 

I know moms seem to be split 50/50 on whether it's better to go for the aisle or the window seat with a lap child. On our first flight I went for aisle, because I figured we'd have a little more space if someone sat next to us, and maybe Ez could stand or walk around in the aisle if he got too antsy. Well, no one sat in the middle seat and all he wanted to do was look out the window. He was practically climbing over our patient neighbor to watch during takeoff. So the next three flights we sat by the window and that kept Ez occupied for the first 20 minutes or so before we actually took off. 

Another tip I had read was to not pre-board. I ignored that. We flew Southwest and it's first come first serve seating, so I actually paid extra so we could be in Boarding Class A. A little something I've learned from previous flights is no one wants to sit next to the toddler. That way anyone who sat next to us was choosing to sit next to a kid, and therefore hopefully liked kids and didn't mind random screaming. (Ez didn't do any tantrum screaming, but he does sometimes randomly scream out of excitement. I find it kinda cute, but I know I'm a little biased.) I also just plopped Ez in his own seat and I figured that if anyone was wandering up and down the aisle seatless right before takeoff I'd move him to my lap, but thankfully that never happened. 

During all of our layovers I had Ez running laps in the terminals. Gotta wear that boy out! It's funny because Ez actually made some friends in the airport, a girl a little older and her sister who was about 1, and their mom kept asking them to stop running while I'm there being the bad influence encouraging Ez to run as much as he could. 

Clearly my strategy paid off:

Ez slept almost the whole way from Burbank to Denver. And then from Denver to Burbank he stood in front of his seat and played with his puzzle and cars for about an hour and a half. At that point we had to use the airplane changing table - a turbulent, cramped experience that I hope none of you ever has to experience. Also, Ez happened to get diaper rash that day, which he almost never gets, so that made the experience even more fun, with him screaming and squirming on the 1.5 foot flimsy folding "table". That diaper rash was probably the worst part of the whole travel experience, but thankfully it went away in about a day and a half. After the diaper changing fiasco we read the one book I brought a few times, watched about half an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and then Ez entertained himself reading the emergency flight instructions. Then the flight was over! I'm not gonna say it flew by, but there were no meltdowns, Ez didn't throw anything at other passengers, and all the flight attendants commented on how well-behaved he was. That's my boy :)

One more tip I learned about Southwest: they don't carry milk, so bring your own! Thankfully I had time during all the layovers to pick up a bottle. 

Another tip I read a lot from other mommy travelers was to fly in the morning, while kids are typically on their best behavior. I didn't really have too much of a choice in our flight times, because I'm all about getting the best deal. That meant flying out at 2:00 pm and arriving in Boston at 1:00 am on the way there. That worked out fine since Ez took his afternoon nap on the plane. If he hadn't napped, I'm sure the flight would have been much less pleasant. On the way home we left Boston at 8:00 am, but in order to beat traffic and get there on time we were up by 4:30 am. That could have been awful, but it wound up working out great because Ez slept on both flights. He slept almost the whole way from Boston to Denver, the longest flight, and he took a shorter nap from Denver to Boston. AND we got three seats to ourselves on the last flight. See? Best case scenarios the whole way. I wish I had tips on how you could pull that off every time you travel with kids, but I'm pretty sure we just got really lucky and our next flight will probably be completely different. I mean, I always fly Southwest and I've never been on a flight with empty seats in the past 5 years. Normally we're all packed in like sardines.

While Ez was sleeping I started the first Game of Thrones book and enjoyed the view:

Gorgeous, right??

We Made It!

Ez and I made it safe and sound to Massachusetts! The flight here went so smoothly it's a little surreal. Best case scenarios the whole way! No mini liquor bottles necessary ;)  I'm almost a little scared even writing that, because we still have our return flight ahead of us and it seems like the odds are against us to have such an easy flight twice in one week. I'll do a full flight recap after we're back home. In the meantime here are a few random shots. Ez loves all the extra attention he's getting and all the extra hands to play catch and cars with. More posts and more pictures to come (of course)!

In the meantime, head over to Sweet Turtle Soup to see some random Nina/Ezzy/Joe facts on Courtney's blog! 

Traveling Cross Country With a Toddler

Tomorrow afternoon, Ez and I will board our first flight of the day and approximately nine hours later we'll be in Boston! We are so excited to spent the next week visiting family. It's been way too long since I've seen this side of my family, and Ez hasn't even met a lot of them. My last east coast trip was four years ago - time really does fly! And really, nine hours to travel 3,000 miles is amazing. A feat of engineering and all that good stuff. But nine hours alone with a toddler in airports & airplanes is...a little less amazing. Downright scary, even. 

Ez has already flown several times, and it always goes smoothly, but he's never flown more than an hour at a time. Obviously there's a big difference between one hour and nine hours. Usually I don't pack anything special for the hour flights. Just the usual two snacks I always carry, and maybe one toy. But for tomorrow, I'm packing a toddler emergency kit - as much entertainment and food that I can possibly cram into my backpack. I would love advice from any of you moms that have been there and done that. Any tips that kept your toddler happy while sardine-packed into a tiny space for hours at a time? Please?? In the meantime, this is what I managed to fit into my backpack:

Snacks: 

• goldfish crackers
• 4 fruit/veggie snack pouches 
• blueberry larabar
• pb&j sandwiches (not pictured) 
• apple slices (not pictured)
• sippy cup
• straws

Entertainment: 

• foam puzzle (foam hurts a lot less than wooden pieces when they're thrown at your head - you're welcome, other passengers) 
• new Eric Carle board book
• mini cars + road maps (from those bargain activity books at B&N - I know it's a lot of small pieces and we're likely to lose some, but if it gives me any extra moments of peace, it's worth it)
• book for me (in case Ez naps - fingers crossed!) 
• Pups (more for comfort than entertainment)
• my cell phone - I downloaded the Disney Junior app. Any other app recommendations?

Necessities: 

• diapers x8 (1 per hour is enough, right?)
• wipes
• large ziplock bags - for dirty clothes, etc. 
• a spare outfit for Ez
• sweater for Ez
• cardigan for me which can double as a blanket for Ez
• my wallet + copy of Ez's birth certificate
• phone charger

Here's a pic of Ez trying on his hand me down winter coat:

Too cute!