.SOMETIMES RAW.

“I was surprised, as always, be how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.”  ― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

The writer in me I guess chose a quote by Jack Kerouac’s great novel “On the Road” to start this post. If you have never read it I highly recommend that you do. Let’s get to the bottom of this road trip story I want to share. A couple of days ago my son (almost two years old) and I needed to drive to a garage to get our car checked out. It turned out that this specific garage was approximately 64 miles away. One way no less – so it is a mini road trip. My family totally is into long road trips driving all the way up to Canada but these tips I will share work well for any road trip – even smaller ones. My son loves being in the car and does not mind long road trips; however, he can get pretty annoying at points when he is bored, hungry, wet or all of the above. I want to share a couple of tricks and tips how I survive a road trip with my son and make it as comfortable as possible for everybody in the car. 

For us, timing is important. My son loves loves loves to sleep. He sleep currently from 8:30pm until 10:00am without waking up and crying once. (Lucky me for the time being, right?!) So I try not to schedule anything for before 10:00am obviously. The key is to make your child as comfortable as possible – meaning if you can avoid it, let them sleep and schedule the appointments in the afternoon for example. This way they are not fuzzy and getting up on the wrong side of the bed. Then again, if your baby sleeps well in the car simply plan your time with their regular nap time or sleeping cycle. For the road trip to the garage I left two hours earlier simply because of all the traffic, stops, diaper changes etc. You never know. Plan accordingly and keep in mind that you need to stop and make a break. I can drive easily four hours straight without stopping whenever I am alone. My son needs to walk a bit and stretch his legs after driving for 2 hours. 

I always change my son’s diaper before we leave. On this note, make sure to bring enough diapers and wipes!!!! Nothing worse than to run out of wipes!!!  I don’t need a changing table for him while on the road. I simply change him on the backseat which works fine for us. If you do need a changing table, make sure you plan ahead and see where the rest areas are with somewhat clean bathroom and available changing tables. Also bring a set of extra clothing for the baby. Bring some garbage bags or ziploc bags for diapers, dirty clothing etc. 

Make sure you bring enough snacks. My son is into apple juice for quite some time now so I bought these from Trader Joe’s:

They come with a little straw and he loves them. So I always bring a couple of those and keep them in the car just if you are stuck somewhere longer than expected. You should also have at least two bottles of water in the car at all times and some snacks for yourself (Road Safety 101 my husband would say!) As far as snacks, I usually bring sliced apples and some crackers/pretzels in a ziploc for him to nibble on. When he gets really hungry I have to stop obviously. 

I always make sure I take some toys. He has toys that he loves and one stuffed little fox that he takes wherever we go (My sisters’s son Pauli has a stuffed clown called “Siffi” that needed to come along at all times as well!) I never thought I would ever do this but we bought an iPad headrest mount. My son loves to watch Peppa Pig and Maisy Mouse, and lately anything Disney Channel, so I downloaded some of the episodes and I put it on for him whenever he does not know what else to do anymore. Usually he is fine just looking outside the window. (yeah, my son is pretty awesome!) 

This is all we take on a small road trip and so far we had no problems. Is there anything else you would take? Feel free to share in the comment box below. I would love to know how you handle road trips with your toddler(s). 

Safe and sane travels. 

“Children close their ears to advice but open their eyes to example.” 

I do not know much about parenting but I know that this statement above is very true. My son is almost two years old now and he copies whatever he sees I do. But listening to what I tell him, fuhgeddaboudit. I know that my husband and I have to prepare him for life from the minute he was born. I do love to have this opportunity in my life to teach him right from wrong and all these valuable lessons I once had been taught. My son soaks up all these values we live by; how we work, how we clean, what we do on a daily basis and most importantly we serve as an example in his life that he can trust us unconditionally. 

To teach him that the little things in life are important and not materialistic possessions is key for us. We teach him that it is not important to have the coolest, hippest clothes; that there are other values in life which are way more important than what he wears. He will know that the key to happiness is not how much you own and we will teach him the pursuit of happiness. However, there will be a time when he will be out there exploring, wanting things but if we lead by example in living a content life with less possessions and more happiness because of it he will see that it is possible to do without X,Y and Z. I hear all the time from friends that the kids throw tantrums in the store, scream and cry because they want to get something. My son is good so far. No tantrums yet and I hope it stays that way. He does not have many toys; he has enough let’s say but loves to play outside with dirt. Go figure. 

We are in control of our lives and we most certainly don’t have to live like everybody else. My son is not old enough yet to understand all this but he will realize that things are different in our family and home. Our lifestyle allows him to travel the world but to live minimalistic so to speak. He travels with his little suitcase and explores with us as long as is able to before school starts; this way he can enjoy being a globetrotter together with his parents from a very young age on. I think these are great examples to set. It is not complicated to take him anywhere at this point. He is an awesome travel companion. 

I want to lead by example in showing him that we do not need to buy everything we see or like. I want to teach him later on that we still don’t buy certain things even though we do have the money. A lot of stuff we purchase is  useless if you really think about it. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t let my son run around in garbage bags and let him play with two sticks and a rock. 😀 Now that we go to the playgrounds regularly I think it is important that he learns to share things with others. He has to learn that it is not all about him and if he has two apples he can give one to the other kid. I want him to grow up in a clean environment and not a dirty messy house. So every evening when we ate dinner we play for a bit longer and clean up together before I bring him to bed. It works fine so far; sometimes he even starts to clean on his own. 

Lastly I want to emphasize how important it is to spend time with my son. Just to BE with him you know. Not on the phone, not doing something else, just listen to him and give him my undivided attention. Of course this is not possible all the time and I do love my new iPhone but just think about it while watching this video. “Sometimes we have to disconnect”. Thank you for reading. 

Hello there and happy Friday. Can you believe it is already October? There were still some days with really warm decent weather this week but you can feel change is in the air. I actually turned the heater on in the kitchen because it is just uncomfortably chilly this evening. The nights are getting colder and I find myself more comfortable with a cup of tea and my book on the couch than anywhere else really.  It is all okay though. Change is good right? And fall brings new exciting things for us. Like pumpkin spice lattes! 🙂 yum! After all, didn’t we all anticipate this change of season for so long? I have this feeling in the mornings that I want to stay in bed a bit longer because it is even cozier all wrapped up in my blankets when looking outside and seeing a bunch of grey and rain lately. The breezy air in the evening yesterday made us run home from the playground to a  nice hot bowl of soup. This is the time when you need to pay attention and listen to your body to not get sick. Make sure you have this comfortable cozy sweater handy. This is what we have been up to this week. 

Working: On this website a lot. I knew it was not going to be easy to set up my own website but I did not know how much time is actually involved if you want to make it look nice. It is a lot of work indeed! Besides writing daily (which was my goal from the beginning) to updating, improving and maintaining this website it is all fun and I love it so I stop complaining. As soon as my son is in bed, this is my time to work in peace and quiet. I tried to work during the day a bit but it is too much distraction. My son is all over the place, typing, deleting so I spend the time with him and focus on my work at night. Check out my website logo! You like it? 

Enjoying: My new MacBook Air. My 2010 MacBook Air died on me the other day. Well not entirely died but it began to crash and was just too slow in uploading images etc. so it was time for a change. This new one makes everything so much easier. Thank you my love. 

Listening to: These days I am listening to podcasts quite a lot. I am a huge fan of This American Life  and follow their stream for years now. It is free and easy to download on iTunes. (My favorite episode is still and for all “Break-up”) The other day I discovered Spilled Milk. This podcast is about food, cooking and is just really funny because of the hosts; the writer/comedians Molly Wizenberg and Matthew Amster-Burton. As they state on their website “We start with a food-related topic, from apples to winter squash, and run with it as far as they can go—and, regrettably, sometimes further”. 

Reading: I am excited to announce that I will be reviewing books for five book companies in the near future posting the reviews on my blog (or parts of the review as far as I am allowed to) with links to their websites. They will be sending me books to review in the mail starting October 1st and then I have a month to read and write about them. This is literally a dream come true for me. Stay tuned for some great new book reviews coming up. Besides all that I am about to start “Furiously Happy” by Jenny Lawson to see what all the hype is about. 🙂 

Loving: My husband who supports me and never doubted this whole website blogging adventure. There were times when I thought “Why am I doing all this and nobody will ever read this”! He encouraged me to continue writing and to put my articles out there. He always says that I have nothing to lose but only to gain from this experience. So here I type along. 

Enjoy your weekend. And do what makes you happy. Always!