Ski Trip 2012 - Traveling with a 12-Month Old

We got back from our Steamboat Springs, CO ski vacation this past weekend. We had a really great time and I am so glad that we decided to go and didn't let having a 12-month old stop us. I get really anxious before trips with the baby, and then she does such a fantastic job that I wonder why I was ever worried about traveling with her in the first place.

Car ride to Tulsa

She really was a super traveler. She slept on the flight from Tulsa to Denver. She slept on the drive from Denver to Steamboat. She slept on the drive from Steamboat to Denver, AND she slept on the flight from Denver to Tulsa. The only time she got fussy was on the last leg of the trip home (Tulsa to Fayetteville), but she had been in a car seat or on a plane the entire day. I didn't blame her...I would have been fussy too if it wasn't socially unacceptable for a 29-year-old to fuss and complain.

Flight from Denver to Tulsa

I think the main reason I was so nervous was because all of our travel fell smack dab in the middle of Claire's nap-times. Claire is not the best napper. She HATES to go to sleep, so I was really worried she wouldn't nap at all, or that they would be short, ineffective naps. However, this actually worked out to our advantage. The car and plane rides lulled our sweet baby to sleep and she spent the majority of our time in the car and on the plane snoozing. We were even lucky enough to get a "I didn't even know there was a baby on the plane" comment at the end of one of our flights.

I had packed a backpack specifically filled with toys for Claire and her diaper bag was stuffed full of drinks and snacks. I felt a little foolish for packing so much when all she did was sleep in transit, but if I had it to do all over again I wouldn't change a thing--better safe than sorry!

Next Post: First Stop, the Tulsa Zoo!

Pre-ski trip

We are one day away from departure on our family vacation. (I still have not packed--I got sick on Wednesday, so that definitely did not help my motivation). I am pretty excited about our trip--I love having uninterrupted time with the husband. Jared's mom is coming with us (free babysitter-- Yeah!) and Jared won't have to worry about work stuff for a whole week.

Also, when we return I will hopefully have some really fun pictures of the baby in all of her snow gear. So no new posts from now until we return (hopefully with each of us in one piece).

I'm packing again...

So packing for a trip is totally different now than it was ten, or even six months ago. I used to start planning WAY in advanced (see previous post). I love to be organized and have lists and a plan. In five days we will be taking a ski vacation. This time around I have only given a few short, perfunctory thoughts to packing -- prior to today. Of course I have been thinking, "Hmmm, usually I have started packing by now...oh well, I have time. Or, " man, we are going to need a lot of stuff for cold weather, I should start making a list...tomorrow."

Today, however, I started thinking earnestly about what all we would need and that I really needed to get organized. Everything takes so much longer with the babe around. I even printed off some "Packing for a Toddler" lists--more to make myself feel like I was doing something than to actually accomplish something. Then I read the lists and started to try and form an idea of what we needed to take with us.

I also read a comment that basically said, "remember packing for a baby, double or triple that and you will have almost reached the amount of items needed for a toddler." (Agh!)

The list became so long and overwhelming that I abandoned the idea of packing and am now trying to avoid all thoughts of packing and preparation--but still pretend I am making headway. (Hence the blog post about what I should be doing rather than actually doing it). I have basically shut down all together. My brain will not perform any function related to packing or preparation for said ski trip.

Now that I have abandoned all hope of packing or thinking about packing today--and also successfully packing for this trip in general--I am starting to become fairly anxious about not having started packing in the least.

I did manage to pull a few suitcases out of the closet though. So I am going to pat myself on the back and pretend I cleared a major hurdle today. Maybe tomorrow I will actually put something from one of the lists into one of those suitcases.

That is unless I become completely overwhelmed and shutdown...again.

i heart Pinterest

 Pinterest is the most amazing website. I have seen some awesome things and gotten some fabulous ideas off of Pinterest. The problem I have with Pinterest (and probably a lot of people, but I am not going to speak for anyone else) is that I see SO much stuff I like and would like to do that I end up spending more time looking at amazing things and not so much time actually doing them, making them, going to those places, etc.

Thanks to Christmas I had some money to buy some crafting supplies. Yahoo! So I went crazy and bought all of the necessary supplies for three craft projects. All of which I saw on Pinterest and have been wanting to try. They are all crafts/activities for the baby. We are going to be taking some plane rides in the near future, so these are all activities that she can do that are relatively quiet. I say relatively quiet because I am pretty sure Claire will decide to squeal with delight, or just scream to scream even though these activities do not require that kind of response.

Here are pics of two of the completed projects:

- Marble Maze (The new quiet book):

- "I Spy" bag:

I am still working on the actual quiet book. I have a feeling that it is going to take me a while. I just need to have it finished by June. (I got one page finished over the weekend...one of twelve--to give you an idea of how long this project is going to take me.)