Last weekend we decided to take a 5 hour trip north to visit Grandma for Labor Day weekend. Since this is our first kid, I was preparing for the worse. What happens if she needs a diaper change? Food? Attention? Time to stretch? Needless to say, I had our van packed to the gills with various baby contraptions and devices. We decided to leave Friday morning at 5:30 am since I was used to being awake at that time and I was the only person who was going to be driving. We left and I was ready for the worst which I’m gladly reporting, was not needed.

She slept almost the entire way.

Let me clarify this just a bit, when I say “almost”, I mean she slept 4 of the 5 hours there and 4 1/2 hours on the way back. It was awesome! Unfortunately, it didn’t give me much to report on now that we’re back. What I did find interesting were the items that were packed for this trip.

Since we were going to visit Grandma, who hasn’t had a baby in her house for a good 13+ years, we had to bring everything from changing pads and bouncy chairs. To my surprise, we actually used all of the items we brought. Here is what we packed for our 6 week old daughter on our 5 hour trip:

• Bouncy chair
• Auto-rocking swing chair
• Instant baby food formula (and a water bottle for food on the go)
• 4 bottles
• Breast pump
• Mountain of diapers (and said changing equipment)
• A couple of onsies
• A couple of socks
• Spit rags

Looking back now, there wasn’t really anything we didn’t need. It was all used, and came in handy. I guess my favorite part of this trip was recalling how we used to travel pre-baby.

2 bags with clothes, a jacket and an extra pair of shoes. Oh, life was so simple back then.