Road trip with infants and a toddler

If you are thinking of taking a road trip with 6 month old twins and a 3 yr old,

Don’t. I repeat, Don’t do it!! At this point, I’m sure you’re saying, well duh! Yes, we did do this, but it was more a must than a want. One of my best and dearest friends was getting married, and it was a must for me to be a witness. Isn’t the bride gorgeous!! What beach wedding isn’t magical, beautiful and special? I’m just thankful that I had a loving and patient husband willing to not only go along, but watch the kids while I was at the wedding.

Our road trip down to Port Aransas was HARD!! Actually, just making the trip with the toddler or, I think, even if they the twins hadn’t been breastfeeding every 2 hours, then it wouldn’t have been that bad. Breastfedding the twins every 2 hours, therefore 1 1/2 hour pit stops, is what made everything so hard. It was hard to feed and change them while not letting my toddler go crazy with waiting….Oh WAIT…did I mention we were potting training our two year old? Our 6 1/2 hour trip took us nearly 11 hours, ouch!! We knew it wouldn’t be a vacation, but an experience. 

One Crazy Pit Stop, in particular, and of course it is a Poop Story:

It just really took a long time to get everything completed. My husband was burping one baby as I breastfed the other. Then he realized his baby was having a blowout, as he smelled and looked down at his hand. Ugh! So he changed the diaper, and the clothes, since the blowout was everywhere, and cleaned the baby as well as himself. However, as he was putting a new diaper on, we had one of those having a boy and pee goes everywhere fun moments. Papa, the car, the baby, new outfit…peed on!! So again, we made a change of clothes and cleaned up. Well the baby I’m holding is finishing up with his feed and is having a major poop diaper. All of this coinciding now with a screaming toddler who all of a sudden is in dire need of also going potty. With both adults occupied with a baby, this is no easy task!

1 1/2 hours later, we are all clean, fed, restroom relieved, hooked into our car seats and ready to go. Daddy is pulling out of the gas station and we hear a voice in the back seat of the car, I need to poo poo daddy!!! Dad’s head goes down on the steering wheel, some choice words were quietly spoken, as he is shaking his head and deep breathing…then he looks at me and we start laughing. Whatever the situation, children bring their own memories and laughter to a marriage….I think you just have to know when to laugh, or to remember to laugh, and try to always enjoy!!!

Some fun playing on the beach and eating fresh seafood!!

 I Think the Salt Air of the Beach can be Good for People Who are Sick?

Did I mention that the babies had their first real cold, since birth, and yes we still made the trip. I was a worried mother the whole time, especially when they had excessive green lovely coming out of their eyes, in addition to their noses. However, I have been told that the salt air, close to oceans, is good for sick people. Sure enough, 2 days after the beach day, my boys were all better!!

Don’t forget to take care of Mama, like I did!

With the combination of my swimsuit, swimsuit cover, and the fact that I forgot to put sunscreen on my back, I got this wonderful face impression on my back. I live in tank tops and for weeks I had people commenting on my creative sunburn. Awesomeness!! My burn was almost hospital attention rated so in addition to the pain and already being at high risk for skin cancer, I spent days in extreme pain as I lifted and held children.

Cribs in Hotel Rooms

As I gathered pack n plays for the road trip, some friends informed me that I could request cribs at hotels. This is something I didn’t know. I highly recommend this to other families travelling and staying at hotels. The cribs were clean and with fresh sheets. We still took our own sheets and blankets, but the convenience of the cribs was fantastic.   

What was funny is that our toddler was in his bed, which faced the cribs, and he was talking to himself and being silly. When we put the twins down, they started crying but were soon entertained by our toddler and ended up laughing until they fell asleep. Our toddler loved to see his twin brothers laughing at him and he entertained them until he also put himself to sleep. This gave my husband and I the opportunity to watch a movie…the FIRST opportunity, with the longest period of time, at night, without kids, for us, in months so this was quite enjoyable.

Other posts of possible interest: Twins/ Multiple Births

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