Love-hate Relationship with Travelling

I love to travel although I really don't travel a lot lately.  I actually grew up travelling.  The next day after school officially ends, my brother and I are shipped (love the term!) to Zamboanga where we both spend our summer vacations.  We both get shipped back to Davao a few days before class officially starts.  At times, our Amah (Chinese for Grandmother) would bring all of us (the whole gang of cousins!) to Manila.  I often wonder how she managed to handle all of us.  Now that I think and write about it, I think my parents had a stress free summer. Yay!

Now that I have kids, I have this love-hate relationship with travelling.  I love the idea of spending time with the tots without yaya's and helpers around.  A few days of just being totally being with them kinda gives me an adrenaline rush.  What I hate the most is packing for their stuff.  I assure you, I am no light packer.  My overnight trips would mean I'd be bringing a 15 kilo luggage.  Don't ask me what's inside.  It's just that I'd rather bring plenty than be missing out on some things.  So the twins get one huge luggage, the one that can fit around 30 kilos of stuff!  And the luggage does not even include their feeding bottles, diapers and toys!

At six months old, they traveled for the first time.  That was to go to Zamboanga.  I forgot why we went there but what was significant was the fact that they met my Amah who eventually died a year later.  I can remember the luggage, the diaper bags, the feeding bottles, and the diapers!  I think we brought a total of 12 feeding bottles, excluding the ones for their water.  My my my! Did we have excess luggage?! We did not bring the sterilizer as we settled for boiling them on the oven.  But we did bring their duyan.  Two actually, with ropes and everything.  I even asked Di-Ku to hammer some nails on the wall.  (Last year, when we attended the Temple Rites for the 2nd Death Anniversary of my Amah, the nails were still there.)

Last December, we had two family trips.  One in Cebu during the 1st week of December and another one in Manila, during the 3rd week.  The Cebu trip was fun as we were able to borrow the car of a family friend.  So we were actually able to discover Cebu.  But the bad thing was, we did not have a stroller.  Bad move!  When you have toddlers around, it's always a good idea to bring a stroller.  Personally, I can't carry the twins for a long time anymore.  My back eventually hurts.  So when we went back to Davao and prepared for our Manila trip, we bought new single strollers for them.  Not the expensive ones though.  Just for that particular trip and hoping that the strollers survive.  We still had a car courtesy of a good friend and sorority sister, and best of all, we had a stroller.  Nice!  But long travels still make the twins cranky.  I guess I would like to say that when you're with kids, limit travel time.  Stay in a resort and make the best out of that stay.  Going from one mall to another was not something our kids enjoyed.  But when we stayed at Plantation Bay,  they definitely had fun!

So when travelling with toddlers, here's some tips:
     1.  Bring strollers;
     2.  Use Playtex feeding bottles with liners as this really helps as compared to bringing tons of feeding bottles;
     3.  Use pull-up pants in lieu of ordinary diapers; and
     4.  Bring water and baon.  Kids need to eat all the time.