Traveling Part 1 - New York

A couple of weekends ago we embarked on our first trip with Violet. We drove from Vermont to New York City for the wedding of our friends Mike and Katie. It was the first long car trip Violet has been on and it was the first time we were planning on leaving Violet with a babysitter.

Statue of Liberty

Marc, Violet and I headed down to New York on Thursday. It took a little longer then expected to pack up and get out of the door but the trip down was pretty uneventful. Violet slept the whole way except for when she was hungry. Luckily the first stop was a stop for our lunch too (yay Chipotle!) and now that Violet is an efficient nurser the second stop didn't last more then 20 minutes.

Once we arrived in New York we checked into our hotel and Violet got to experience her first hotel bed as we got the room setup. We chose not to bring a pack and play with us (thankfully because the room wasn't spacious) and instead set up a floor bed for Violet. Basically you roll a towel up into a tube to create a bumper around where she will be sleeping and then cover it with a blanket. It worked like a charm as you can see in the photo below and I would highly recommend it for babies who aren't rolling yet. (I'll let you know in a couple months if it continues to work once she starts rolling.)

Thursday night we went out to dinner with some friends who had recently gotten engaged. Friday was spent partaking in the final preparations for the wedding. Violet spent the day being carried by Marc in the ergo and she absolutely loved looking at all the lights and colors and buildings. I'm not sure she loved all the noises but there was definitely an abundance of things for her to look at. All the running around also crossed off quite a few firsts for Violet. We had her first trip in a taxi and on the subway.

She patiently sat with me while Marc picked up and tried on his tuxedo for the wedding. Violet was a gem at the rehearsal lunch and even allowed us to pass her around to others so we could eat our lunch. She sat in a church for the first time during the wedding rehearsal and even made friends with one of the ladies in the church office. Later Friday evening we all enjoyed the rehearsal dinner. Although by that time she was a little tired and Marc spent some quality time with her outside walking around the block.

The biggest event of the weekend for Violet was having her first night with a babysitter - Marc's cousin Heidi. This was the first time we had left Violet without either one of us for the evening since my mom watched Violet for an hour on Marc's birthday back in the beginning of March.

I have to admit that I was actually a lot less nervous about leaving Violet then I expected I would be. Probably because we had such a trustworthy babysitter keeping an eye on our little girl. That and we got updates throughout the night via text as to how things were going. I would get the text that said something along the lines of "She fell asleep sucking her thumb." While Marc got the texts like, "I put her to bed way too early and forgot to change her into pajamas. But I did change her diaper." By the time we got back to the hotel at midnight Violet was sleeping soundly, in her pajamas, and we were ready to crawl into bed too.

Sunday we loaded up the car and headed back to Vermont. Overall it was a successful weekend for all of us and was a good dry run for our trip to California. It allowed me to add and subtract things from the packing list and feel confident that we could handle the 6 hour plane trip the following weekend.