I had forgotten what it was like to travel with a newborn.  Unfortunately they are not entertained by audiobooks, and you can’t hand them a snack and a sippy cup and expect all to be well.  We did reach the destination of our somewhat spontaneous trip though, only about an hour and a half later than we would have otherwise.  There was a point at about an hour in when I was really wondering if it would be better to just go back and forget the whole idea, but thankfully that ended up being the lowest point and it did get better from there.

As most of my readers know, there’s been a lot of fire activity in my part of California, and while there aren’t any fires all that close to where we are, we’re getting tons of smoke.  The smoke is so bad that everyone is being told to stay indoors and not do anything outside - which is not a lot of fun when you live in a little apartment.  Even in the apartment with everything closed up my head still aches, my sinuses hurt, and my eyes burn.  When I go outside I can feel it in my lungs and on my skin too, and I wonder how it is for Nathan.  Emma and Gregory seemed to be feeling it too, and they were not really appreciating being cooped up in the apartment.   Emma was supposed to have swim lessons all this week, but they’ve been cancelled because of the extremely poor air quality.  My mom had come up for a visit on Sunday to visit with Nathan and help out with the other two, and we all decided to head back to her house in the Bay Area today to escape.  

The drive was going well until I had to stop for gas, which of course woke up Nathan.  I stopped to feed him and he pooped, which necessitated an entire outfit change.  We drove for about another 20 minutes and he woke up again, needing to be fed.  I had fed him a great deal just before we left, but apparently it wasn’t enough!  Emma and Gregory were also complaining of being hungry, so I stopped at the first fast food place I could find and got the kids out of the car.  I found Nathan soaked for no apparent reason, so I dug out the diaper bag and hauled that into the restaurant as well.  The restaurant had no diaper changing station in the bathroom (argh!!) so I just held him and nursed him, wet, while we all ate.  I changed him once again - diaper, outfit and all - in the driver’s seat (not the easiest thing in the world…  sometimes I do wish we had a bigger car!) and found out that we had a (*ahem*) positioning error.  You’d think with having one boy already I would have thought of that…  but apparently not.  But at least at this point everyone was fed, dry, and relatively happy again.  We hit the road again and thankfully made it almost the rest of the way with everyone quite content.  Nathan woke up shortly after we got off the freeway, but we made it to my Mom’s without too much trauma and I fed him while my Mom unloaded the car.  

So now we’re here, and I’m not looking forward to getting in the car to go home this weekend!  I think I might try driving in the evening, after dinner.  Perhaps that will help…  or maybe we’ll leave at around 2, when Nathan usually takes a long nap?  I’ll have to think about it.  But for now I’m glad to be here, and thankful for the change of scenery and the increased amount of play space for the kids!