Sammy and the Six Hour Car Ride

They say life is an adventure, right? So why not put a 5 month old in a car for 6 hours and drive to Palm Springs? We successfully took Sammy to Monterey a month or so ago and that was a 2.5 hour car ride each way, in which he did amazing. So how hard could 6 hours be?

The goal was to go visit my grandmother (Nana) and introduce Sammy to her for the first time. So we set the date and almost completely fill Annie Toyota Rav4 with everything Sammy owns. Heck, he had his own suitcase…Annie and I shared one.

The inventory looked something like this:

Car seat (duh)

BOB stroller (folded up of course)

Pack & Play (folds down & we used it as his bed in Palm Springs)

The video monitor

Sammy’s suitcase with 800 outfits (I might be stretching the truth)

A toy bag

A large thing of diapers

Diaper bag

Formula, bottles, and the sanitizer for the bottles

Large package of wipes

I think that’s about it…but I’m probably forgetting something. I should have taken a picture of the car all loaded but alas, I did not.

You get the picture though, we were loaded and prepared for anything that might go wrong. Here’s the thing…nothing went wrong. On the drive down we stopped twice, once to change Sammy so I went ahead and topped off the gas tank and a second time to grab some food. On the return trip we only stopped once and that was 3 hours in to the drive. He slept a fair amount on both drives and either ate or played the rest of the time.

Thanks Sammy, you know, for taking it easy on us!!

It was a good trip and the drive was actually fun. We talked, listened to music, and also enjoyed those non talking times as well. It’s fun being out on the road traveling through other peoples’ home towns.

It was good to see Nana and have her spend time with Sammy. She got him to smile and laugh and heard him do a lot of his little guy talking…pretty fun!

As usual, I think the key to having a baby is maintaining your own sanity and not letting the “what ifs” take over. When we drove to Monterey a month or so ago I remember being super worried about how Sammy would do but Sammy wasn’t worried at all. This time I was MUCH less concerned, which I thought was odd since the drive was so much longer. He did really good though and Annie did a fantastic job of being prepared and remembering all the things he would need or might need.

The key to parenting, as with anything in life, is to take a deep breath and enjoy. All this stuff goes by so damn fast and the time we spend worrying or stressing robs us of that time even further. There comes a time when we need to stop wondering what other people will think about how we do things and just follow our own path. In this case, we need to stop worrying about other people and Google things less and just be Sammy’s parents.

Cheers to another awesome adventure!!