Phoenix, Arizona
Evanston, Wyoming
Salt Lake City, Utah
These are some of the places we've been with my husband while he was working.
In 2002, my son Joel, who has 16 months old at the time (along with Michael in my womb), flew with my husband to Irvine, California (southern), where he had been working for a while doing engineering work. We stayed there for three weeks and then Joel and I flew back to KC alone. We didn't want to leave so soon, but I had taken donations for a World Breastfeeding Week walk and felt like I should actually do the walk.
My grandma thought I was nuts to travel with a little kid while also pregnant (she pretty much always thought I was nuts — five kids, homeschooling, traveling, working from home). But I always wanted to be a flight attendant, and travel was in my bones from the time I was born. My mom always understood, though, as she was a GO GO GO person who married my dad and went to Germany with him immediately (where I was born). That woman will travel ANYWHERE! My dad also likes to travel, so I come by this naturally.
Soon after the Breastfeeding Walk, we all flew this time for some fun with our kid in Phoenix, where my husband was working on another project (automating the city's wastewater and water treatment systems). This time we stayed for five weeks.
So ... what do you do for a total of TWO MONTHS as a stay-at-home pregnant mom with a toddler when your husband has to work all day and all night? Well, you make your own fun. Sure, you watch cartoons in the hotel, but a toddler won't go for that for long. You savor those naptimes when you can hold your toddler and watch your own TV shows and talk on the phone with people you miss and plan to start a Creative Memories scrapbook biz when you get home (what a flop!). I didn't have internet access, so I looked in the phone book for parks and playgrounds, and we went.
We found a La Leche League group in town and went ONCE (not super welcoming, those attachment parenting chicks, sometimes, and I'm not sure why—sometimes very nurturing and loving to their children but not so much to other women).
We drove around a lot. We went grocery shopping and bought craft crap at Michael's. We went trick-or-treating at the mall. We went to the library and to the rose garden and to any McDonald's we could find with a play area. We kept busy. It's not exactly a hard life, folks; just involves some imagination!
Update January 23, 2023: We've since traveled by car as a family to Chicago, Illinois; Houston, Texas; multiple cities in Florida; Charleston, South Carolina; and Savannah, Georgia and loved every minute of it!
