On the road with a one-month old

With Captain Husband's departure to Korea looming just around the corner, we decided to take advantage of his time home and make one big trip up to New Jersey so that Sammy could meet his great-grandparents and other relatives and CH could see everyone before he leaves. CH's family lives in Nutley, which is a good 5+ hour drive from our place, so this would be Sammy's first overnight trip away from home (two nights in a hotel). Now for the fun part: What to pack? I knew right away that I was going to want disposable diapers on this trip, because who wants to deal with a two-day old festering bag of dirty cloth diapers in the car when it's 95 degrees outside? Yeah, not this lady. Of course, we had no idea what size diaper Sammy would need because he's been rocking the fuzzi bunz this whole time, so we had to employ a very scientific method which involved Captain Husband weighing himself and then weighing himself while holding Sammy and subtracting the difference; apparently our little bruiser is now weighing in at about 10 1/2 pounds. Armed with this information, we headed off to Babies-r-Expensive and picked up a package of 7th Generation disposable chlorine-free diapers. While there, we decided to stock up on some of the basics and bought a carton of wipes and two boxes of formula; I didn't want to take any chances of running out of something important in the middle of the night.

Here's a rundown of all of the stuff we took in addition to the diapers, wipes and formula:

• Our pack-n-play with built-in bassinet (scored on super duper clearance and quite possibly one of the best purchases we've made)
  
• Two pack-n-play sheets
• Six blankets (four of the fuzzy variety)
• Three washable changing pads
• Four zippered sleepers
• Eight onesies/assorted outfits
• Four pairs of socks
• Two pacifiers and a pack of pacifier wipes
• Three books, a rattle, and an activity mat for play/tummy time
  
• Stroller
• Bouncy chair
• Assorted baby toiletries, like shampoo/body wash, baby lotion, California Baby diaper-area spray (referred to as butt spray in our house), and California Baby calendula lotion (for Sammy's lovely baby acne and other mysterious rashes)
• Baby Bjorn
• Ring-wrap
• Breast pump and a plethora of bottles and nipples, as well as other assorted accessories, like a bottle scrubber thingy and travel-sized dish soap; I actually managed to pump while CH drove 75 miles an hour on I-95 just to see if I could, but I wouldn't recommend it (CH was worried that everyone was getting a free show, but in my case, things like modesty ceased to exist after I gave birth)
  
• And a partridge in a pear tree

We could have foregone several things on this list and we also could have used some more items, such as additional changing pads (we wound up using some of the extra blankets that we had brought), but all in all it worked out pretty well. Thank goodness we have a huge trunk for all of said junk. Sammy managed to charm the pants off of all of his relatives, who responded by showering him with gifts, affection, and Italian conversation.

Here's Sammy meeting his great-grandparents:


Four generations on one couch:


No major melt-downs or diaper explosions and a good time was had by all; the very definition of a successful trip as far as I'm concerned!