Leah's First Trip Out of New York

Yesterday we left New York City and New York state for the first time since Leah was born. We went to my friend Eilisa's baby shower in Philadelphia. We got up at 7:30 - that was when Leah let us know she was ready for breakfast. And after feeding her, getting ready, finishing packing a bag of stuff for Leah, packing lunch for us, picking up the rental car, and feeding Leah again, we were on the road about 10:15. The drive to Philly was only about 2 hours and 15 minutes even though it was pouring rain the whole way.

Leah loved the car. She fussed when we put her in the car seat, but once we were on our way, she was happy as can be. And by the time we had been on the BQE for about 5 minutes she was sound asleep. She woke up here and there along the way, but always went right back to sleep. Then when we got to Philly we hit a lot of traffic and she woke up and fussed a bit when we stopped at lights. I was able to get her to take a pacifier, which calmed her down enough to keep her pretty quiet until we got to Eilisa's house - about 15 minutes or so.

I fed her when we got there, and then we had our lunch, and then I fed her again before heading out to the shower. She slept soundly while I was gone - about 2 and a half hours. Shafi stayed at the house with her. They napped together on the couch for awhile. We brought about 3 ounces of expressed breastmilk in a bottle in case he needed to feed her while I was gone, but it proved unnecessary.

I fed her again before we headed out and we were back on the road home around 6:30. She slept the whole way (2 hours) and for another hour after we got home. That was great, because I was able to just leave her sleeping in the car seat while I had dinner and got ready for bed. Then I got her up and fed her and had her down sleeping in the crib by 10:00 - which meant I got to go to bed.

Overall it was a pretty smooth trip. We did have a diaper change issue at Eilisa's house before I left for the shower - Leah projectile pooped while we changed her - luckily most of it landed on the linoleum floor and was easily cleaned up.