A quiet moment

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A few years ago, I used to travel for business fairly regularly. These days I don’t have the opportunity to travel as often, which is appealing to me as the mother of a 17-month-old child. Life is less complicated when you don’t have to leave the house at 7 am to catch an early flight from Montreal to Toronto. Today, I took my first business trip since returning to work from maternity leave. Until last night, I wasn’t too stressed about it. After all, it’s just a day trip for some meetings in Toronto, something I’ve done millions of times.

My own preparation for the trip involved absolutely nothing.  In fact, less than for a normal day at work, since I had no lunch or gym bag to pack, no errands to plan for on the way into the office. I simply needed my purse, my laptop and my boarding pass. At the last minute I threw a 3 month old issue of Today’s Parent into my bag in case I found myself with time to read on the plane.

But suddenly last night I remembered my son. Oops. My trip meant that my mother would have to come over early to babysit, I couldn’t prepare his lunch and snacks for the day in the morning like I normally do – and since I would be arriving home later than usual, what the heck was the plan for tonight’s dinner? So I scrambled to get it all done last night after coming home from doing groceries after dinner while my husband looked after putting my son to bed.  

But I’m not complaining. It’s par for the course. Business travel when you have kids requires a little extra planning. No biggie.

What I found disorienting today was the fact that I had forgotten how much time you spend waiting around when you travel. As the mom of a toddler, I just don’t spend time waiting around anymore. I have to-do lists and I am always trying to accomplish something, whether I’m working or I’m home. Idle time is normally planned and scheduled. In other words, if I sit down to watch TV for two hours at night, it’s on purpose.

Even with my blackberry and laptop on me and meetings planned for the day, I still underestimated how much time I found myself with at the airport and on the plane. The kind of time that in the past did not seem to go by as slowly. These days, I am amazed at what I can accomplish in an hour. I can zip through items on a to-do list and multitask like nobody’s business. So once I had accomplished whatever work I could possibly complete, read an entire magazine while chatting about vacation plans with the colleague who was travelling with me, I thought, what the heck am I going to do on the flight home? Especially when I found myself seated next to an empty seat (yes!).

I briefly contemplated taking a nap, which would have been so gratifying. But I’m not a pretty sleeper. I am the person whose head rolls around the seat, mouth open with a trail of drool running down my chin. Since I would like my professional integrity to remain intact for a little longer, I opted against the nap.

There was no in-flight entertainment, since I was travelling aboard a small regional jet on a short flight.

I suppose I could have sat alone with my thoughts for the hour and stared peacefully out the window at the view below, but that would have inevitably led to the abovementioned nap, so that wouldn’t have been a good idea.

So I’m blogging. And as I write this I’m truly amazed by the speed at which I now operate. How many things do I cram into my time now? How hard is it for me to disconnect, really? My mind is constantly racing, thinking, planning, plotting, working. Thinking about projects, assignments, the office, my job, my son, my home, my husband, our plans, our upcoming vacation, what we have do at home, what’s for dinner, what’s planned for the weekend,  finding time to go to the gym, what I’m going to write about in my blog, when I’m going to find the time to write my blog, what’s happening on Facebook, when will I read this month’s book club selection, and oh, I have to remember to fill in my son’s forms for daycare before August 6^th.

Whew. I’m exhausted. Maybe I will take that nap after all.

Have toddler, will travel

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This past weekend, we decided to embark on our first real road trip with our 14-month-old son. We’ve taken very short overnight trips before, but this was our first time spending more than one night away from home. And we figured, if we’re going to do this, let’s do it right. So we took a bite out of the Big Apple and headed down the highway to New York City for the weekend.

I will admit that I was really nervous about this. Travelling with a toddler requires a serious amount of planning, packing and patience. When we visit other cities, my husband and I like to be on the go. We don’t stop to eat; we grab pizza by the slice and say to hell with our diets. We leave our hotel room early and come back late at night. We research and map our itinerary and do as much as we possibly can in the short time we have. This just doesn’t work quite the same way when you have a little person with you. Because that little person has needs!
So here are the pros of travelling with a child under the age of 2:

• If you’re driving there, you can drive at night and they’ll sleep through the trip. That was how we got our trip off to a good start. We were zombies in the morning, but he was fresh as a daisy and that’s what really matters.
• If you’re flying, they don’t pay for a ticket (hurray!)
• You don’t have to stop for repeated bathroom breaks, because diapers are good for a few hours. However, you need to find nice clean bathrooms where you can change diapers easily as needed, but fortunately that didn’t prove to be a problem.
• They still take naps, so if your child is good to nap in their stroller, you get to do your own thing while they snooze. Thank goodness my son naps well on the move. He even slept through Times Square of all places! If your child needs a bed or crib and a quiet room for their naps, I’m afraid this doesn’t help you.
• Many, many people will tell you how adorable your child is, and then will be more likely to hold doors, elevators or move out of the way for you. But that’s not everyone, that’s for sure!
Here are the cons of travelling with a child under the age of 2: 
• The stuff! You can’t travel light – you need to pack diapers, wipes, snacks, sippy cups, blankets, a change of clothes in case of emergencies, three different kinds of hats… the list goes on. We took a bold risk in not packing any kind of toys or books for when we were out, but I knew these would only end up on the dirty NY sidewalk so we didn’t bother.
• Yes, they nap, but before the nap usually comes some whining and if you’re unlucky, a meltdown. Cue frustration and public embarrassment now.
• Grown-up activities like shopping, museums, and eating in nice restaurants are a challenge. I’m not saying you can’t do it, but it’s not easy.
• Feeding them requires serious planning and strategy. Depending on what your child is now eating, you may not be able to feed them restaurant food, so you’ll have to pack meals, snacks, milk, bibs, wipes, spoons, cups, etc, etc, etc… That may have been the most stressful part of our trip for me. Especially when he was refusing to drink his milk and water and I was worrying that he would get dehydrated.
• Being stuck in a stroller for three days was not my son’s idea of a good time. We had to stop often to let him out to walk around and stretch his legs. Then we had to stay on top of him so he wouldn’t touch garbage or eat gravel… which he attempted.
• Travelling with a child who needs diaper changes, naps, meals at specific times and an early bedtime… well, it slows you down. Plain and simple. You just can’t accomplish as much as you would have otherwise.

That being said, it was a great long weekend. It was so nice to spend some quality time together as a family, to get out of town and be in a different place. We all had a great time and this weekend will stay with me as a wonderful memory for a long time to come.  They say a change is as good as a rest, and this weekend’s change of scenery was a great mental rest, even if it was physically exhausting!