Traveling with Carson

Is it strange to go and visit your husband's family without your husband? Maybe not if they live just a few miles away, but I don't think it's often that a person would travel half way across the United States (with a 5 month old nonetheless) to visit their sister-in-law. But I guess that just goes to show you how much I've come to value Ruth's friendship over the past few years. I just couldn't wait 2 months for Chris to have enough vacation days for us to go and see my new nephew. So when Chris said he had to go to Boston (and then Chicago) for business this last week, Carson and I decided to set out on an adventure of our own!

It wasn't easy traveling with Carson alone. For one thing, Springfield Missouri is not an easy place to get to - at least not from the west coast. It's nearly impossible to fly into Springfield Regional Airport (ok, not impossible but a $700 flight is just a bit too pricey for my budget), so we were stuck flying into Kansas City or St. Louis Airports - both of which are over 3 hour drives from Springfield. And you can't get a direct flight from San Jose into Kansas City or St. Louis - which means layovers - and a really long travel day.

I wasn't too worried about getting to the airport, I figured Chris could park the car and help me get to the check in desk with our 2 pieces of checked luggage, the car seat, diaper bag and of course Carson. What I was worried about was how I was going to get those 2 pieces of luggage, car seat, diaper bag and Carson from the baggage claim onto a shuttle and finally to the rental car! I should have had someone take a picture of us making our way to the rental car. I had Carson strapped to me in the Baby Bjorn, I had the diaper bag on my shoulder, I placed the smaller of two bags onto the larger one and had that it my right hand and carried the car seat in my left hand. Armed with some $1 bills for tip I was able to get the shuttle driver to help me get on and off the shuttle without too much trouble. And there were quite a few nice people who offered me a hand, though I didn't take them up on it because as it turned out my system worked pretty well.

Under the circumstances Carson did really well, particularly on the trip to Missouri. We left the house at 3:30am to make our 6am flight in San Jose, so Carson slept in the car to the airport (I wish I could have slept too!). He was awake while we were at the airport. I held off on feeding him until we were ready to take off (to help his little ears pop) and after eating he fell asleep. He woke up when we arrived in Phoenix and I let him play on his blanket with his toys at the gate for our hour layover. By the time we got back on the plane, he was hungry again and ready for a nap. Again, he ate and then slept most of the flight to KC! He woke up when we landed and chatted with other travelers as we waited for our luggage and made our way to our rental car. By this time he was pretty tired of traveling, but we still had a 3 hour car ride ahead of us. He slept most of the drive, waking up a couple of times and got a little fussy. So we made a few more stops than I would have made without an infant, but it wasn't too bad. We stopped at a Walmart about half way to Springfield and I picked up diapers and baby food for the week - since I hadn't wanted to pack any more stuff than I had too, which gave us both a much needed break from the car! We arrived at Ruth's house in time for dinner.

The best thing Carson did for me while we were in Springfield is that he started getting up fewer times at night! It was really hard being on Carson duty 24/7 and at the end of the day I was really tired. And we started the trip on a bit of a sleep deficit. The week prior to going to Springfield he had been getting up 3-6 times a night because of his ear infection. But he started almost straight away only getting up 1-2 times a night once we got to Ruth's house. I don't think this was just a coincidence. We have been giving Carson solid food for a few weeks now, but to be honest most of the food was ending up on his face rather than in his stomach. But something just clicked with him that first feeding in Springfield - he figured out how to move the food from the front of his mouth, to the back of his mouth and how to swallow! Suddenly 90% of the food I fed him was now making it into his stomach!! And he started eating more as well! For the first time ever, on Friday night Carson slept through the night! He went to bed at 7pm and didn't wake up until 5:30am. Now granted he was VERY AWAKE at 5:30am, but he slept a really long time! And so did I! He did get up once last night, but I'm hopeful that we'll get more of those all-nighters (and not the kind we had in college) in the days to come!

The return trip also went well. The only real incident was on the final flight from Houston to San Jose. We sat awhile on the plane before we took off and Carson got fussy. I had been trying to wait to take off to feed him, but he was having none of it. So I fed him early and then just as we were taking off he threw up what seemed like an entire bottle of milk all over me. It was disgusting. I was covered in sour-smelling milk, we were in the process of taking off, so I couldn't get up or anything. Eventually a flight attendant brought me a damp towel so I could kind of cleanup and I was able to change Carson into some clean clothes I had brought for him, but I didn't bring myself a change of clothes - so I was stuck smelling like spoiled milk for 4 hours. It was not fun. Carson felt much better after throwing up and slept the rest of the trip in my lap. I was really glad to see Chris when we got off the plane! And to find a clean shirt once our luggage arrived!