Home Shop About

Five Weeks on the Road with a 6-month Old: Why We Would Do it Again

All together, the journey made us better parents. We listened more closely to her as our usual busy lives laid dormant and, through experimentation, learned more about her cues and boundaries. I won’t hold back the whole truth, we had some scares along the way. A couple of times I wondered how anyone allowed me a license to parent (oh yeah, they don’t have those), but Flora survived. She even laughed, that dorky giggle she inherited from me but sounds a lot cuter on her, more than anything.

While my baby girl might not remember her first major road trip, her first time in another country (we went to Mexico for two hours), her first time at the ocean or seeing an armadillo or meeting a Voodoo Priestess or hearing a Cajun band or being in a cave or seeing the Alamo or meeting her cousins (yes, we saw some family along the way), I am convinced that all of this, this all encompassing experience, will help her, somehow, to be a better person. Her senses have been heightened by all the new experiences, her motor skills awakened by the intense traveling, her constitution endowed with increased adaptability and, of course, the best part, her bond with her parents stronger than ever.

Tuesday June 24th, 2008 in 5 Weeks on the Road with Baby | No Comments »

Five Weeks On the Road with a Six-month Old:The Long Way Home

Each place we went, we needed new tools to navigate with baby. In Carlsbad Caverns or Big Bend National Park, our Ergo baby carrier was indispensable while in San Antonio or Austin, we could not do without the stroller. At the Arkansas Wildlife Refuge where alligators looked suspiciously at our dog, our daypack became a diaper bag and in the electric humidity of New Orleans, a portable fan helped us all sleep better at night. We figured it out as we went along and considered every day a learning lesson.

In the end, the most difficult part of the whole trip was the adjustment of returning home. Flora was used to being within twenty feet of us at all times in the van so, in our house, she hated when we left the room. With more space to move, she quickly began doing so and we learned how much more cautious we had to be. The old tricks to get her to sleep we used before the trip no longer worked and we had to continuously employ the tricks we used on the road; i.e., driving in the car, walking with her in the carrier. While she used to sleep through the night before we left, her new separation anxiety prevented that. But that is life with a baby. Once you have it figured out, they change; and this too shall pass.

Monday June 23rd, 2008 in 5 Weeks on the Road with Baby | No Comments »
© 2010 What Every Baby Needs | Admin