Traveling. Pregnant. With a Toddler.

The title says it all, really, need I say more? We went to my sisters wedding in Dallas. So let me start off by saying, it was beautiful. She was beautiful. I cried when I saw her coming through the arch at the end of the aisle. She looked like a princess.

But everything leading up to that moment and everything for the two days thereafter? Let's just say it wasn't fairytale. It all began with my procrastination over packing for this trip. I need to remind myself, it isn't as if I am only packing for my husband and myself any more. Traveling with children takes planning. And effort. Two things I didn't do for this trip. I'm going to blame it on the pregnancy.

I did not even pack all of our stuff the night before I left. When did I pack it? In the nineteen minutes that I had before we had to leave for the airport. Needless to say, I forgot some things. The stroller. YES. I forgot the stinkin' stroller. How in the world can I forget the stroller? I was busy running through my mental checklist of things like socks, underwear, dress clothes for the wedding, camera, yeah, stroller wasn't even on that list.

I realized it halfway to the airport. Of course we didn't have time to turn around since 1) we live 45 minutes from the airport and 2) we were barely going to make it on time as it was. So I started my trip off, well, ticked.

We got to the airport and decided to try our luck at the parking garage. Mistake number two. We KNOW better than that. If you are leaving town on an Thursday or a Friday, in particular on a holiday weekend you always know to head straight for the overflow overflow parking. That means that they are so full they are using the lot at the university and -lucky you- they aren't even going to charge you for it! Because they aren't even keeping an eye on your car while it is there. I was thrilled.

Just as we parked in Timbuktu it started to rain. With wind. I made my husband bring our umbrella (because he was only lugging two suitcases, a backpack, and a carseat). We ran through the parking lot to the shuttle, got to the airport, pretty much ran through the airport, and got to our plane with about ten minutes to spare before boarding. I love starting my trip off like that.

Hayley was pretty good on the flight out- and we got lucky enough to snag an extra seat which definitely helped ease the pain of running through the airport carrying Hayley since we had no stroller. We got to Dallas around 11pm, got our rental car and headed to my brother in law's house. Got there about 12:30 in the morning and thought (dreamed?) we were going to have a good night of sleep since Hayley didn't fall asleep until about 12- which was 10 our time and two and a half hours past her bedtime.

Yeah Right. She was up at ten to six Dallas time. I thought I was going to DIE. And the humidity, well, don't even get me started. I have no idea how pregnant women survive that heat and humidity. I always hated it when people called it a dry heat in reference to Vegas. It's 115 degrees there in the summer but it's a dry heat. I will take it all day long. Dry heat? I love dry heat! At least when it's that hot if the wind blows it dries the sweat on your body. Not so in Dallas. Ick. I was cranky the whole weekend we were there.

So anyway, my sister got married Saturday evening and I thought for sure we would have a good night of sleep. Umm, no. Hayley was up from 2-5 with a raging fever. Remember my inept packing job? Yeah, I had no infant Tylenol or Motrin. We had no idea where a local 24 hour pharmacy would even be located, not to mention we couldn't remember the alarm code to get out of my brother in law's house without waking the dead.

She had the fever off and on for the next two days and didn't sleep. At all. So we didn't either. I have never been so happy to come home in my entire life. No wonder people don't travel with their children. I mean, when we took her to Hawaii at four months old it was a breeze! I wrote an article for an online travel magazine discussing how to take children to Hawaii. I think I need to write them and tell them I need to revise my article. It is nowhere near as easy as I made it sound and if anyone takes my advice they are likely going to feel pretty ripped off at how hard it really is.

I'm not bitter. We did have a good trip. It just seems that whatever could go wrong, did. I will say this- we had a fantastic experience with the rental car company for a change. We rented from Advantage last time we were there and without going off on another tangent I will just tell you to stick with a good name- like Hertz. We had an awesome car and I think we have found a winner for the next car we are going to buy. We had the Mazda CX-7 which is the smaller size crossover. I LOVED IT. I would like to test drive the CX-9 for the fun of it but the handling on the CX-7 was exactly what I was looking for. Not to mention it had pretty good cargo space- I think it will hold a double stroller- something my Audi A4 cannot do.

So all in all, well, there's no place like home.