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You’ve been on that hell ride before. A long flight with crying babies and stare-downs with parents who appear to have no ability to calm their child. I once remember being hungover on a flight home from Las Vegas with a child that screamed the whole way. I blasted my ipod until the guy next to me told me to turn it down. When you decide to fly with your baby you cannot help but have that fear that YOU are going to be the one with the screaming child. As luck would have it, our son has flown to California twice to visit our family and hasn’t cried for more than 5 seconds.

There are advantages to flying with a baby.

• You get priority boarding
• “Lap Children” fly for free
• The younger, the more likely they don’t know or care that they’re even on an airplane thus making it easier to travel
• They don’t have school yet so you can fly on off-peak or off-season dates, and days of the week when flights are cheaper

Here are some helpful tips

Breastfeed while ascending. For the same reason we chew gum to keep our ears from popping, get that baby on it so they don’t have those ear popping!

If you can, fly when the baby typically sleeps. Landon sleeps until about 9 or 10am. We flew at 6am, so he slept for the first 3 hours.

Load every electronic device with material that entertains your child. Also, if your flight has DirectTV, order it. I’m not a big TV fan, but at times like this, it will keep your child happy and from not screaming.

Pack a bag with some snacks diapers, wipes, blankies, and toys for your child.

A brilliant idea by my wife: Check in to your flight early, and reserve the window seat, and the aisle seat leaving the middle seat open, because unless the flight completely sells out, it’s unlikely that someone will check in and assign themselves in the middle of two strangers. We got lucky, it worked and we had the seat in between us open. Landon got to sit and play there when not sleeping or nursing on our laps. We also had more room for all of our crap. It made it easier when we had to get up, and we had an extra tray for food etc, too.

Gate check your stroller. We brought our City Mini.

Ask to get a photo in the cockpit after the flight! The pilots were delighted to meet Landon and let him sit in the Captain’s seat!

As for transportation, I dropped off Elizabeth and Landon with all of the luggage, including our baby car seat, and let her check luggage while I parked the car. At United in Newark, they have attendants and check your luggage right at the curb. We got to bring our car seat and used it in the rental car when we arrived in CA. On our return, while Elizabeth waited for the checked luggage, I went and got the car and picked them up. This is convenient and a time saver. We got a good deal on a rental car so we didn’t need our sister to provide us with rides to and from the airport, it was not much more than what the taxi would cost, and we could go wherever we wanted while we were there.

Safe Travels!

Sounds simple right?

“Sure hon, you take a shower and I’ll strap the baby in the Ergo and take the dog for a walk!”

But there’s a few steps I would like to outline before you decide to go on this adventure.

Things to do before strapping on baby

1.) Put your shoes on. (this isn’t easy with the baby on. I’ve tried)

2.) Put harness or collar on dog (harnesses are not easy to put on while bending over with baby on especially with excited dog)

3.) Make sure you have poop bags. Having a baby is no excuse to not pick up dog poop. Also, your anxious dog won’t appreciate the ‘hold up’ if you realize this after strapping on baby, and again, bending over is not simple. Save that motion for the poop.

4.) Depending on weather, now would be a good time to put on appropriate outerwear for you, baby, and maybe even dog.

5.) Congratulations, if you’re baby hasn’t already climbed off of the couch (Please put baby somewhere safe while doing all of this) you may now insert baby into carrier.

Walk and Poop Scoop

1.) Be safe! You’re now responsible for at least 3 living beings! That’s a lot to take on at once! Look both ways before crossing streets, and look for people who aren’t looking.

2.) After dog has found his/her perfect little spot to poop, take out poop bag! Did I mention to put this in a handy location? Good idea!

3.) Open bag and place entire hand in. Whichever hand is not in the bag, place over the baby/carrier and slowly bend down to pick up poop. Your free hand will keep baby from falling into poop and avoid a possible injury. Your partner would not be happy about that. Nor should you.

4.) After picking poop up, be real careful to pull bag over poop, and tie it above any potential residue to prevent any exposure to you or baby. Your adventure back home won’t be easy if you have a poopie hand.

5.) Find trash container to dispose of poop bag.

6.) Go home, and wash hands before removing baby just in case there has been any contamination.

Congratulations! You just pulled a solid and your partner just had 10 minutes to take a peaceful shower and you just earned some brownie points!

Donovan

The other night after we put the baby to sleep, my wife and I had a few hours to ourselves and we looked for a movie to watch. The Change-Up (currently available on HBO OnDemand) with Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds was free and had some decent reviews online, so we decided to give it a shot. I have no idea if this movie would have been as funny to me had I been single or without a child, but nevertheless I could relate to much of the humor and we definitely got plenty of laughs. This film is from the director of ‘Wedding Crashers’ and writers of ‘The Hangover” although I found the humor to be more genuine and not as ‘forced’ as the latter.

The story is about 2 friends, Dave (Jason Bateman) who is married with 2 children, and Mitch (Ryan Reynolds) who is single without many responsibilities, who pee into a fountain one night and wake up the next morning switched into the other’s body and thus forced to live out each others’ lives.  IT IS FUNNY! Mitch is suddenly thrown into the corporate business world with a career on the line, a marriage, and 2 young children to care for at home. Dave is thrown into what he thought to be a very care-free lifestyle reminiscent of the also recent movie Hall Pass (that’s a funny one, too).  There’s one particular scene that involves Mitch (in Dave’s body) having to wake up in the middle of the night to take care of the children – and there’s an altercation with his wife – it had us laughing so hard I think my wife almost peed herself!

Aside from the raunchy and goofy humor there’s some pretty cool fundamental life lessons in there, too. It’s like the whole ‘grass is always greener on the other side’ type of thing. Mitch thought Dave had the good life with a high paying job, a beautiful house, 2 children and a hot wife (or is she? hahaha you’ll see). Dave thought Mitch had it made with a life of little responsibility – but then realized that he had his share of struggles as well. The movie starts to fade in the end but I think it’s worth your 1 hour and 52 minutes, especially if you have experience juggling a marriage, career and/or caring for a young child.

donovan

Welcome to all those reading! This will be my place to post about my experiences as a “New School Daddy!” We are “new school dads” because we are a completely new breed of Daddy and  some of us like myself, were born in the 80′s or later!! Doesn’t that mean we’re still eligible to be young and hip?!?! While maintaining a busy schedule, we do everything we can to be the best partner and dad to ever grace this fine green planet,  all while remaining “cool.”

This is me at work with my son Landon. Yes, contrary to previous scientific evidence men can actually multitask, too!

I’m starting this blog because I know I am not alone. I still enjoy the things that I had previously thought only cool people in their 20′s could enjoy. I like staying up late and sleeping in (I’m teaching my 6 month old son this practice), I like current music and film, hitting up concerts and I often perform in them, I love grabbing drinks with friends, I love fantasy baseball and football, I love traveling and plan to drag my son everywhere, and I still shop for the same clothing (wait…maybe that’s a bad thing?). Circumstances have changed a bit, we’ve added responsibilities, and priorities have re-aligned, but I’m determined to stay young at heart. This might be a fun place for other like-minded men, or perhaps women that want to laugh at us, or with us. This is a place where I  want to discuss the real issues and events that arise for us new parents without judgement. You can come here just to join in on the conversation, or even for advice- just don’t tell anyone. Let’s have some fun and keep it light! Who knows, maybe this will turn into a meet-up group.

donovan_