Mountain Mother Runner

As a mom, you want to visit your family to make special memories with your sweet child, right? How do you plan on getting there, a magic carpet ride? We recently went on an eight day trip. Each of our travel days included 2.5 hrs driving, 2 flights, a 2 hr layover, and crossing over 2 time zones, totaling 13ish hours of traveling. Did I mention that “we” meant me and our 2 year old? My biggest dilemma of traveling (to visit family, go on vacation, anything more than an hour away) was the anxiety of traveling with a baby/now toddler. Until we quit nursing at 23 months, our daughter never slept ANYWHERE except her bed (not in the car, stroller, our bed, etc) which made me not want to travel. She hated being in the car and would literally cry for hours without ever taking a nap. Luckily, turning 2 seemed to put those woes behind us and opened up a new world of travel opportunities! If you’re crazy enough to travel alone with a toddler, here are 6 tips to make your life easier! 1

Dear Soon-to-Be New Mom,                 How are you feeling? That sweet baby of yours should be entering the world sometime between now and the next two weeks. I hope this last stretch of pregnancy has been going well for you. That was the only time I had days of “feeling so pregnant” and my body was tired . I knew those last few weeks were prime time to sleep in, take naps, and rest up , but I was too uncomfortable.   Know that even if you’ve been worried about getting your house set up or thinking about things that you need to buy, it really isn’t a big deal. Most of those things can wait, for a long time. Your baby will have a simple life for the first few months with only basic needs. There might be times where you’re awake every hour of the night to nurse or bottle feed and feel completely drained. You more than likely will cry over little things for a while, but that’s alright . Between the hormone change and lack of sleep, I was sensitive and cried a lot the first month or

Fall is officially here and our life has been changing like the colors of the leaves. September included two races-Lake Padden Relay and Bellingham Bay Half Marathon , we just closed on our FIRST HOME, and I am currently 1,611 miles away from the PNW visiting family. Let's just say you don't know what you've got till it's gone you're packing to move! The last week of September was crunch time for packing up the house, setting up utilities, and making sure things were somewhat in order before Eisley and I left for our week long trip. Our 13 hour travel day included two flights, a two hour layover, and a two hour time zone difference. She didn't nap, stayed up late, and was still a happy girl the entire day. I feel so lucky that everything went smoothly and traveling alone with a toddler wasn't stressful. My husband is spending the final week in our rental house with our dog Luna and moving everything before we return from our trip. What an awesome man! After