Travel goals with an infant and some reminiscing

After many long and deliberate thoughts around possible situations we can be in while travelling with a baby, we eventually said enough is enough, and took off on a road trip last Saturday. Our choice of destination was Pittsburgh, the pretty hilly city of Pennsylvania. We are talking about driving some 200 miles and looking at random pit stops courtesy baby poo, pee, diaper and feed demands. House was checked for one last time for remaining trash or running taps before we hit the road. And we furiously prayed that this turned out a good experience and not the kind that makes for a good story when the kid is grown up, but hard to survive in present day. But well, those things come later. In the current scenario, ‘taking off’ to somewhere, anywhere for that matter, feels like winning a mini marathon in itself. Let me put this down for some of you blissfully ignorant people – it is NOT easy travelling with a child. It is anything, but easy. Period. Now kindly allow me to elaborate.

Our first travel as a family of three materialized roughly three months back, when baby girl was all of four months – unsteady head, still tiny in the baby car seat, limited responses to people and no solid food yet. And we were travelling to Dallas, hence flying - changing two flights both ways, fully armed with medicines (just incase) and soothers and warm water, just about anything to avoid nasty stares from passengers incase baby decided to throw a fit. You see I belonged to that category of passengers a year back, the kind that gets the jitters at the sight of a baby on flight, ones who stress over the baby getting mad even before he/she could show any signs of it. So I am saying I really do know what to anticipate while on flight with a baby.

Anyhow, despite the longer duration of stay during the Dallas trip, packing was hardly a challenge, thanks to flight weight limits, we were travelling perfectly light, coupled with the fact that we were visiting family, things were going to be easy and handy. During the course of this journey, although baby was surprisingly well behaved, the airport rules however left us parents thoroughly and completely exhausted. By the end of it, we just wanted to sit back and fall asleep on our seats. Security checks were particularly painful, the weight and folds of the stroller (damn you!), the car seat (I am no bodybuilder, no lifting you, sorry!), and the other baby paraphernalia that is beyond me, nearly had us miss our flight. Once we settled in the rather cramped seats (may be more so now with a baby) of the aircraft, I saw the husband frantically searching for something in and around his seat. On a normal day, that’s my cue for him losing his wallet or the car keys, my bad despite so many years of witnessing this act getting repeated over, I still get a mini heart attack every single time! But guess what, we were crossing newer territories here; we found that, we left the beloved diaper bag behind! Something we never had to worry about leaving behind before. For the blissfully ignorant lot, this, FYI, calls for a major heart attack. We know this now, after becoming parents; we know the special value attached to this piece of luggage - a humble duffle bag sort of innocent looking bag that can fix mad baby to crazy happy baby in a matter of seconds! I am sorry parents, if I ever unintentionally mistreated this valuable luggage in airport lounges, restrooms, or aircraft aisles, you see I was naive. So off husband went looking for the diaper bag and after some searching, found it lying abandoned inside the seat where I was seated in the boarding wait area. First lesson of baby’s maiden travel learnt – never ever, ever ever, lose track of ‘the diaper bag’. And the diaper bag must follow baby, like it’s tail, it goes wherever mommy and baby go, because you can almost never tell, when you need it most.

Cut to our recent Pittsburgh trip. What in my mind was preparation for an overnight trip in reality was an exhausting process of packing practically the entire house! First of all the fact that we were going to dump everything in a car gave us the dangerous license to pack every random thing that we thought might be of use. To add to our woes, like most new and indulgent parents, we decided that baby must feel at home everywhere - in the car, in the hotel room, even in changing stations of random pit stops. So must we pack the entire house! And thus began our packing saga. Perfect icing on the cake was the weather, the transition from winter to Spring – cottons, layers, woolens, fleece, snow jacket, baby blankets et al. – by the end of it I lost count of the number of times I had checked weather updates on my phone incase of a change. Finally decided to go with everything anyway. While folding tiny baby rompers and overalls I started reminiscing about our trips as a couple, sans baby. Those perfectly carefree days when you could act as irresponsible as you choose to. Where falling asleep under dripping, smelly tents and sometimes in car backseats in unimaginably awkward postures were perfectly doable deeds. Those days we could plan holidays in couple of hours, mostly backpacking, basking in hippie happiness. Luxury resorts and hotels came later, when we wanted to splurge a little bit, yet could save by taking off on a scooty on winding roads of islands. No sleep or meal deadlines, no feeding or diaper calls, no in charge of tiny human with personality of a teen! Phew! But things are different now. I can only take solace in the fact that we did do the thinking and the planning (mom would say over planning) before baby came and made these changes. And also count my blessings over the fact that baby sleeps, and sleeps really well during nights (touchwood), keeping me sane and perfectly functional during waking hours.

While I was at this, I couldn’t help but notice how close I have come to behaving like my mother before taking off to somewhere; how she would get so tired by the end of all the preparations, that she would fall asleep right within the first fifteen minutes of the journey. I never thought about how I am becoming her clone till I was dozing off in the car within few minutes of taking off. The problem is, I strive for perfection, like she does, even in the most mundane things I do; this fussing over things business drains us out thoroughly. Baby clothes for instance, I need them perfectly folded and placed perfectly in assigned bags, something I cannot trust the husband with. Did I say trust?  Yah, with most obsessed people, trust is always an issue. There are tons of other things that need done by me, and only me, to keep up with the OCD that doesn’t know how to take a rain check. Distance helps notice these similarities in traits. I remember mom’s silks, always perfectly folded, not a single crease, always good to be worn straight from the closet, always pressed, always dry-cleaned. I decided I should take it tad bit easy, when I took out baby’s cotton summer hat for ironing at the last minute, because there was a crease in one spot that was my eyesore from the beginning. This obsession reminded me again of mom, image of her painstakingly arranging flowers in various vases from the bouquets received during the reception party of my brother’s wedding. You would picture a tired, sleepless mother of the groom finding every chance to slip into the bedroom for a quick nap post wedding madness, but not with this woman. While she was clipping some of the dried leaves from the bouquets, I was silently marveling at her patience, strength of her mind, will of her body, and the insurmountable energy. I doubt if I will be half as capable of such deeds when I reach her age, but then the thought of the bouquets lying unattended in some corner, the flowers dying unceremonious deaths, difficult to say whether or not I will be able to ignore all that. And that’s exactly how she must have dragged herself to fuss over these unnecessary things, falling asleep again in the car as we take off to Saalna tea estate later that day.

When I woke up from this reverie, pretty much the whole house was packed and ready to travel with us. Then came the husband who thought carrying a queen-sized comforter would be ideal, and often advised incase of getting stranded in heavy snowfall. Perfect! And you thought I was joking about packing the house? With that last straw, we successfully converted the car into a home for three! Hurrah! Now it was time for my checklist finally. God, do I love this moment! When you vigorously strike off the listed items, the things that you finished taking care of, the pride with which you strike off the entire freaking list! (ya ya judge away!) This undying love for checklists, by the way, is a gift from my daddy this time. This guy had had blackboards mounted in the bathroom dressing area to list down his things-to-do, because, apparently, your brain functions best when you are taking a piss, a poo, or a shower. Can’t argue with that, can you? So ‘checklist’ is my thing, sorry, ‘our thing’. Now the problem with our kind is that we like, sorry, love, ok, obsess over ‘planning’ and ‘preparing’. We detest these last minute impromptu acts like throwing in the comforter just in case. Why couldn’t he mention this right at the beginning, I would have wrapped the damn thing perfectly to fit in the bag it came in, to save it’s corners from peeking out of the ordinary plastic bag (shudder!).

Anyway, it was finally time to hit the road and my mental checklist was at work furiously now. We could afford to leave anything behind but important baby stuff – all the packaged solid food, warm water in a flask, formula milk, pacifier (lifeline!), toys (there’s a favorite one already) and any arbitrary baby thing you could imagine. Let me remind you again, we were going to a neighboring state for an ‘overnight’ halt, if anybody stopped and peeked inside our car, he would think we are crossing over to another continent in a car! Never the less, the trip, despite weather challenges, was a great one. Part of my planning also entailed rigorous research on ‘to-dos’ in Pittsburgh, that would also cater to baby entertainment. Pubs and bars were instantly struck off, and focus was on family-friendly places. Amazing how as parents, half the success of the trip rested on how much baby had enjoyed. However I rested its success solely on the fact that we managed to not leave a single baby item behind, down to the cotton wipes and hair clips, every darn thing came back intact. This trip’s success gives us hope for more ambitious ones in future, but with double the challenges, since baby would be crawling, walking and throwing lumps of food, and fits too, in no time. But for now, let me just bask in the stuff that are still under my control, and let me list down few more to-dos, write down some more checklists, and most of all, celebrate the present that allows me to do so.