why costa rica: the short list

I've been a busy bee, for months now, researching researching researching. I've looked into basically all of our options, from cities in the US to countries on nearly every continent. I just keep coming back to Costa Rica. Our second choice is Panama, but since it borders Costa Rica, we plan to explore Panama as well. Until our pensionado visas are approved, we will have to leave the country every 3 months, anyways. I suppose we could always end up moving to Panama, in the future, but we're definitely putting down roots in Costa Rica first.

I could blog about our decision for hours and fill pages upon pages, but it would probably bore you all. So for now, I'll leave you with my short list.

One thing not listed, but definitely worth mentioning, is that on one of my random Google searches, I happened to stumble upon a lovely lady named Emily, an American expat and writer of the Travel Mother blog. She, her husband, and two young children (close to the ages of our boys) have been living in Costa Rica. It has been fantastic to be able to shoot questions at her and receive honest responses from someone who has mostly the same priorities as us. She also pointed me to some helpful facebook groups. She may be the one who pushed me over the edge when I was debating between Panama and Costa Rica, in fact. I think it's comforting to know, going into it, that there are other native-English speaking families there, who could show us the ropes, so to speak, if needed. Not to mention... she is also currently raising the first canine addition to our Costa Rican family. Visit her blog if you have time! You won't be disappointed.

We are still just waiting on a few things with the VA and the Army so that we can go home to visit our family,  bid our goodbyes, and finally start living our new life in Costa Rica!

Flying with a one year old.

Elliot and I will be heading home to Michigan in exactly one week!

Source: minimocha.blogspot.com via Jess on Pinterest

If only the real thing were this fun...

Elliot has flown a few times in his life- the first time, he was 2 months old, and the second time, he was 6 months old. It went pretty smoothly both times, thankfully. Nowadays, though, Elliot is MUCH more mobile, and he has an extremely short attention span.

So, do you have any tips for traveling with a one year old/toddler? Were there any magical toys or other things that kept your little one busy?

We have two fairly long layovers, so my plan is to stuff him full of some food, give him a bottle, and push him in the stroller until he hopefully falls asleep and naps. Honestly, I'm not too worried about the layovers. He can probably crawl around a little- I'll bring lots of wipes and hand sanitizer. There will be fountains {sure to amaze him} and music. Plus, there will be plenty of strangers around... and Elliot is an avid people watcher and quite the flirt.

We've all seen it- that look of horror on someone's face when they realize that, {gasp!} the woman with the baby was going to be sitting next to them.

It's the plane rides themselves {all 3 of them} that make me nervous. I do NOT want to be "that mom" with the screaming child driving my neighbors nuts. I'm not too sure about noisy, annoying toys, either. If you were flying solo for the holidays, which would annoy you more? Sing-songy toys, or crying? Because if he's not crawling around, pretty much the only thing that entertains Elliot are food, loud toys, and a couple of his board books {only if read in a high-pitched voice} and not sure how long new snacks and treats will keep him busy.

My goal is to make it through the day with as few tears and irritated travelers as possible.

Things I Couldn't Live Without {while traveling}

I still can't believe how easy it was to travel with Elliot. It seems like other moms are always telling me horror stories about traveling with babies. My own mom is even guilty of this- I flew for the first time when I was six weeks old, and apparently I screamed the whole flight. Luckily, Elliot did not take after his mama this time- it was a piece of cake! He did SO much better than I thought he would. He was happily sleeping or checking out the airplane {and babbling to our neighbor} the whole time.

Products I couldn't live without while traveling with an infant:


Green Sprouts formula dispenser- unlike a lot of the others, this has sections for four bottles instead of three. The lid fits tightly so I didn't have to worry about it spilling in my diaper bag- so tightly, in fact, that I had trouble removing it later to refill it! An added bonus- Green Sprouts is an eco-friendly company, and we all know how I love that ;)


GroVia Biosoakers- I didn't want to use disposables during the trip because I didn't want Elliot exposed to all the chemicals, but I didn't want to lug around four days worth of dirty diapers, either... So I decided to use disposable inserts inside the covers that we already had. I chose these because they were chemical free, biodegradable, and flushable. They worked great for us! They did leak more than our cloth... but to be fair, I wasn't changing him as often as I usually do.


Infant Advil {white grape flavor}- I gave this to Elliot an hour before the plane ride and he did great. I love that it was dye-free because, let's face it, some ALWAYS dribbles out, and Elliot liked the white grape flavor a LOT better than the cherry Little Tummies tylenol I'd given him in the past.


Lamaze Freddy the Firefly- Once Elliot grew bored with his new surroundings, it was easy to distract him with this toy- and it clipped right onto my diaper bag, which saved room inside for other neccessities!


BooginHead Pacifier Grip- Because Elliot seems to like spitting out his pacifier every 2 seconds, and airport floors are DIRTY. This saved me from constantly washing his pacifier. These are the only ones I could find that work with Gumdrop & Soothie pacifiers. I picked up a random pacifier clip at WalMart but it only worked with pacifiers that had a handle. These come in really cute colors, too!


Evenflo Aura Select travel system- Since we live in northern Michigan and are still buried in snow, this trip was the first time I was able to test out my travel system. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised! For the price {$200}, this thing worked GREAT. Easy to set up and collapse through security, really smooth to push through the airport, and it has really nice, bouncy shocks which came in handly while pushing him along the road at the St. Patrick's Day race. I gate checked it so that I could use it to push him in the airport, have his carseat for in the car, AND so I could watch them put it on the plane- they've done studies on how roughly checked carseats are handled in airports, and most of them aren't even safe for use afterwards!


My iPad- Airplanes and cars tend to put my son to sleep. So this gave me something to do while he was snoozing- I read a book, showed the person sitting next to me pictures of Elliot when he was in the NICU, played a few games, and even read some children's books to Elliot once he woke up. There are also some pretty nifty ABC/counting kids apps out there that Elliot finds mesmerizing.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

HAPPY ST. PADDY'S DAY!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!
No cute festive pictures of Elliot yet- tomorrow we're flying out to Massachusetts for Saint Patrick's Day weekend, so I'm saving all of his cute outfits. :) We're Irish, so this holiday is a big deal in our family!
I'm REALLY excited- Elliot will be meeting most of his cousins, great-uncles and great-aunts, as well as his great grandma, great grandpa, and great-great grandma! I can't wait. Then of course there's the annual St. Patrick's Day 5k road race and the parade, too! Fun stuff.
Any tips for traveling/flying with an infant?
I have his travel system ready {which I will gate check} for toting him around the airport, and I'm also going prepared with a formula dispenser, infant tylenol, mylicon drops, plenty of pacifiers, distracting toys, his soothe & glow seahorse, and about 100 other things stuffed into my diaper bag. We'll be using chemical-free, flushable, biodegradable liners inside of our WeeHuggers and Flips covers during the trip for convenience. I just refuse to put regular sposies on him! :)
Wish us luck!
I'll be sure to post throughout the weekend via my iPad, which, by the way, I am LOVING so far!