Traveling with baby, part 2

Desmond's now been to the following places: Seattle, Illinois, Maryland, DC, and New Orleans.  He's slated to go to St. Louis, Western Pennsylvania, West Palm Beach, and Bogota, Colombia.  So, before he's a year old, he'll have been to 9 places!  Because of that, we feel we have very good advice to dispense about traveling with a baby.

We were so nervous about traveling with Desmond when he was 3 months old.  Now we're old hats about it and traveling with an infant doesn't seem so daunting anymore.  Don't get me wrong, we still get enough stares when we walk down the aisle in the airplane:

Oh God!  Not a baby!  Please, holy crap don't sit next to me, in front of me, or behind me.  Please oh please oh...

I just stare at each person and smile and sometimes I make Desmond wave his chubby little hand.  Most of the time people look away, ashamed that they've been caught scowling at this poor tiny mother and her baby.  I just keep walking down the aisle, head held high..."I'll show those baby-hating sons-a-..."

Funny thing is, Billy and I would pull the same thing when we saw a family with 4 kids in tow.  In fact, we still do!  We pray that we're not stuck with the toddlers in front, to the side, or behind us.  Because even though we have a baby, toddlers cry AND they can talk.  I'm not sure what we're going to do when Desmond starts talking and yelling and screaming on an airplane and there's nothing we could do to shut him up.  I'm not saying that all toddlers are little horrors (I know one little girl who's absolutely darling and so well-behaved...yes, I'm talking about you, Z), but put them in an enclosed space for more than an hour, it's a recipe for disaster. 

So, we packed up our diaper bag with Desmond's favorite, non-noise toys; a blanket; his favorite book; and several packets of these:

Plum Organics baby food.

Sprout baby food.

Desmond loves these.  They're organic (so no nasty pesticide residue) and don't have any preservatives (some have lemon juice concentrate as a preservative).  We've tasted most of them and they're pretty good.  We usually make our own food, but when we're traveling we carry these around just in case he can't eat what we eat.  We bought little spoon attachments that hook onto the sprout tubes so you can just squeeze the pouch and the food comes out onto the spoon.   It's kind of unnecessary, but we like the novelty of it.  They come in a container and are easy to keep track of.

Des eating some Plum baby organics plum, red carrot, and orange carrot puree.

Des is at a point in his (short) life where he's loves being stimulated: he loves looking at buildings, cars, and people, etc.  Especially women.  And guess what, women love Desmond, too.  He'll stand up on my legs in the seat and peer into the cracks between the seats and babble at the people sitting behind us.  The flight attendants all love Desmond.  He even got to go into the cockpit of one airplane we were on because the pilot wanted to hold him (and did!).  A cop in DC gave him a special DC police sticker.  Servers gave us extra naan to feed to Desmond (we didn't...).  The proprietor of a bed and breakfast would make Des special breakfasts in addition to ours.  It was really quite amazing seeing all the outpouring of love for the little Demon.  

Using the spoon attachment on the plum baby food at Union Station in DC.

Walking the mall with Desmond.

So, make sure when you're traveling, you come well-equipped with attention-grabbing stuff like toys and food.  And breastfeed or give baby a bottle when the plane takes off and lands so that their little ears are ok. 

The smile we get from people when we leave the plane.  "Oh, he was such a good baby!"