Road Trip!

We're road-tripping fools, my husband and I. So last week, when he had a sales presentation about six hours away from our home, we decided to make it a family trip. I was stoked for Ellie's first road trip to happen when she was only five weeks old. Plus, we're planning another, longer road trip for the near future, so it was nice to take a shorter test run and see how the kiddo would handle it.

My hubby - we'll call him BB, for Best Beloved (not in a sappy way, more in a Rudyard Kipling way, just work with me here) - had to be there by 2:30 and we wanted to allow some extra time in case the baby had a nuclear meltdown or something, so he said he wanted to be on the road by 7 a.m. In a word: UGH. I usually get a little sleep around that time while Ellie's sleeping, depending on how fun and interesting the night before was, so I was a little apprehensive. Instead of my normal procrastinating, I got everything possible ready the night before, and told BB to wake me up at 6 so I could feed El Pookerino, get the last-minute stuff ready, and possibly - dare I dream? - take a shower, if time allowed.

So when the first words I heard that morning were, "Wake up, honey, it's 7:20," I freaked. Apparently BB had revised his departure time without telling me, which was just fine, since I got a little more shut-eye. While I fed the Pooker, he disappeared into the kitchen and soon the most marvelous smells of frying egg and vegetarian sausage started wafting into the family room. Ellie was still nursing when he called out that breakfast was ready, and I decided to multi-task, carrying her to the table and attempting to eat my breakfast wrap while she breakfasted on boob.

Mom tip #2: If you're eating while your kid's nursing on you, shake the fork (or wrap) up and down a few times before moving it from the plate towards your mouth. This minimizes spillage of food onto your kid. Although they don't seem to mind much, as long as the food isn't too hot or runny. I dropped some egg on the side of Ellie's face and she really didn't seem to notice. In fact, she didn't even blink when I picked the egg up off of her temple and popped it in my mouth. (Oh, come on. Like you've never done it. She was perfectly clean.)

Anyway, we managed to get on the road by 8. Ellie conked out quickly, as she usually does in the car, and I tried to restrain myself from checking to make sure she was alive every five minutes. (Apparently 'normal' moms do this sometimes, too, I was intrigued to learn. I thought it was a reflex caused by having a stillbirth.) At first I was actually undoing my seatbelt and hanging over the back of the seat to make sure she was breathing, but eventually I settled for Mom tip #3: If you're in the car and you want to check on your kid without actually climbing halfway into the backseat, just stick your hand in her face and feel around til she moves. For some reason, I don't have this obsessive need to check on her when we're driving around town; maybe it's just because we don't usually drive for longer than half an hour at a stretch, which is about how often I felt a need to do the still-breathing poke.

About three and a half hours later, we stopped for lunch. Ellie started fussing a few miles before the exit; what can I say, she has good timing. I fed her and then ate. I probably would have preferred that BB park the car so it was facing away from the fast food parking lot entrance, rather than towards it, as it was lunchtime and apparently half the town likes to hit up this particular establishment for a little midday nosh. I'd covered us up with a baby blanket, so it's not like I was hanging out tits to the wind, but still, I felt a bit on display. He'd figured I'd want to be able to see if anyone was approaching the car while he went inside to get us lunch, and he was right, but y'know, I'd figured I'd use the mirrors or something to handle that particular observation task. Oh well. No harm done, anyway.

I should probably get used to nursing in public, because my breast pump totally randomly broke while we were on this road trip, which makes the one coming up a tad more difficult. Instead of pumping to prefill bottles, I'll just get to do the old blanket trick wherever and whenever the kiddo gets hungry. Let's hope it's not too windy at our destination...

Anyway, we had an awesome first road trip. We saw some gorgeous scenery, BB and I had delicious food (except for the fast food lunch that first day, which wasn't terrible, I'm just not that into fast food) and Ellie handled the journey like a total champ. I was very proud of my little gypsy baby. She seemed to have fun too.