My three-year-old daughter recently discovered that she has finally gotten tall enough to reach the light switches in our house.  She was very excited about the growth spurt and she looked at me and said, “I must be four now!”

Sometimes these moments of growth in our kids seem sudden, like turning on a light.  And other times, not so much.  J has been signed up for preschool since February and she still has about a month before her first day.  This change is a long time coming.

And sometimes a transition isn’t as easy to quantify as a change in age or height.  It may be the sum of many tiny changes.  In about two weeks time, I bumped my babies up a size in clothes and diapers, moved the straps in their car seats up a slot, moved them out of our room overnight, and started them on some “solid” food.  They’re not newborns anymore.  They’re fun little babies… most of the time.

This realization, coupled with the fact that Y is about to track out of school for three weeks, has me craving a bit of a getaway.  My first thought was a trip home.  I have about a zillion family members who haven’t met our new babies yet.  But then I thought about the drive to Ohio.  And the drive back.  And how many hours that would be in a car, something I don’t particularly care for even when there aren’t any screaming babies around.  And I thought about trying to find time to pack and unpack and so on.  I decided that a trip to Ohio should wait until Christmas, otherwise I might not want to do it at Christmas. 

After considering some closer options, we settled on a day trip to the zoo.  You might be thinking that a 90-minute drive doesn’t really qualify as a trip.  It’s not the distance that makes a trip though, it’s the work.  (After all, going crazy is a “short trip” for some of us.)  If you’ve been reading my posts, you might remember that I like to keep my bag light.  There will be actual packing for this trip.  I’ll need a full day’s worth of diapers, times two.  I should probably have a change of baby clothes, times two.  We’ll be giving the babies actual food (as opposed to milk, which I don’t have to pack) away from home for the first time, which will involve spoons, bibs and of course food, all times two.  And probably a few other things I haven’t even thought of yet.  We’ll need two of those things when I think of them.  That’s before I even consider the needs of my older kids.  I have two of those, too.  My back hurts thinking about it, times two.

Right now, I’m pretty excited about this mini vacation.  I suspect we will have fun even if a lot of the animals are sleeping.  (They always are.)  I also suspect we will come home exhausted.  But I’m looking forward to proving that I’m not nuts for thinking this short trip is a good idea.  Next week… The Zoo: After.

Mandy appears weekends on TriangleMom2Mom.