Thursday, July 28, 2011

Traveling tips from a mom who packs too much

To say I was "green" when Isaac was a baby is probably an understatement.  I compensated by over-preparing.  I triple packed to visit family- a bag of books, clothes for every season, enough diapers for triplets, and a variety of toys.  Now I've added special food to the list of necessities.  We drive a Vibe.  If you don't know what that is, picture a thimble on wheels.  It's not exactly the most vacation friendly vehicle, but we make it work.  Needless to say I'm trying to learn to pack less- for Isaac at least.  I still plan on having a variety of sweat pant capris to choose from each day we are at my in-laws.  If I'm going to be frumpy I at least want the option of deciding my degree of frumpiness for the day.  I have really cute, young, thin sisters-in-law that inspire me to at least where clothes without stains on them and maybe even do my make up whilst around them.  I need room in that Vibe for my garment bag of dresses that I'll have good intentions of wearing, but won't.  So I need a plan.

So far this is what I've come up with:  Instead of packing a million individual books from home for Isaac, I packed three books that have several stories each in them.  Plus, grandma has a good supply of kid's books.  Instead of packing a bunch of toys, I will only pack a few that will fit in his car seat organizer as there is plenty to do at grandma's house.  I will still pack some gfcf food for the trip, but am lucky to have a mother in law willing to stock her house with what I need so that I don't have to bring 2 coolers, etc.  We've decided that if we ever travel farther than NY we will ship a box of gfcf food ahead of us to wherever we're going instead of chancing it.  I did think of a crafty little trick though. I am going to measure and combine all the dry ingredients from Isaac's gfcf oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe and put them in a ziplock bag or tupperware container to take.  Then all I will need is to add an egg, the agave, and Earth Balance butter to make them.  I won't have to pack each individual ingredient.  I wouldn't bother with cookies except that it's an easy treat to have on hand in the event that there needs to be an alternative for him.

Fast food:  We've switched from McDonald's fries and burger sans the bun to Burger King since finding out that McD's aren't completely gfcf, and it seems to be going well.  I'm sure it's Isaac's favorite part of traveling.  At any rate, we'll probably still be squeezed into our thimble for the 9 hour drive, but I'm trying.  I really, really am.....trying to fight the urge to pack Andrew three outfits and fill the rest of his suitcase with my neglected crafting hobbies. = )

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