Traveling

This past week Gerald, Clara and I took a trip up to Hudson, New York to visit Gerald's parents.  For days leading up to the trip I found myself fretting about what to pack for Clara.  Clothes, spare clothes, food, formula, socks, diapers, wipes...the list went on and on...in my head.  I kept meaning to write out a list but somehow never managed to put pen to paper.

Sunday night  I got home from work.  Gerald had managed to pull out one small suitcase and pack half of it with some clothes for himself for the three day trip.  For the next hour Gerald and I wandered around the apartment with an aimless sort of purpose trying to remember what we had to pack while Clara said "Wow" a lot and tried to pull herself up to standing before toppling over again.

After an hour I looked happily at the one small suitcase now packed with all my clothes, Gerald's,  and Clara's.  We were doing good.  Then I looked at what else we had.  The rest of our packing for our short jaunt out of the city consisted of: An overstuffed diaper bag with diapers, wipes, toys, extra binkies, and spare bottles.

Another medium sized bag held the baby monitors, formula, adult toiletries, three days worth of handmade frozen food for Clara, a couple of more toys, and our cel phone chargers.

My purse - an oversized messenger bag held my kindle, Ipad and other various woman detritus.

Then there was the carseat and the snap and go stroller it attached to...and a blanket.

Gone were the days of me, Gerald and one small suitcase.  How could one little baby need so many things?

Gerald and I got all of our things and Clara to Penn Station.  Happily, Amtrak is very baby-family friendly.  The Red Caps helped us skip the line down  to the boarding train.  Two elevators later we were the first to get on the train and find comfortable seating.  

On our return trip, having magically sprouted another large bag full of gifts from Gerald's parents, we were even more loaded down. At the train station, the stationmaster called ahead to the arriving train and alerted them that we would need assistance.  When the train arrived, one of the ticket agents went through the train cars and found us seating with room for the stroller so that we did not have to go car to car searching for ourselves.

All in all a successful trip.  In the future Gerald and I will know to be loaded down like pack mules while Clara exclaims: "Wow!"