We are going on our first cruise as a family for my 30th birthday! I am so beyond excited to spend the day away from the holiday hustle & bustle, with the people that matter most to me. It's such a milestone for me to be able to enjoy my birthday and travel again after the hardest year of our lives.

I booked this cruise a year ago while I was struggling through deep grief after baby loss.

It was not easy to think of booking something like a cruise or a trip at that time (huge understatement!). That year I had zero interest in celebrating Thanksgiving or Christmas. It was a tough season to get through and people's festive excitement made everything so much worse. It felt right, back then, not to bring out the Christmas tree or any other type of holiday decorations that year. Precisely because the holidays were hard to get through, I knew I would need to escape some of it next year. I knew I would appreciate getting away from it all for a bit and it also gave me a little something to look forward to. I told myself,

If I could make it through this terrible year, then I could look forward to a small beach getaway after Julian's angelversary.

My birthday is now only a few days away and we are almost entirely packed.

As a mom of a three year old little man, I have to admit I'm also bit terrified of how this trip is gonna go. With this in mind, I am determined to come prepared with every trick in the book! We'll look back on this with lots of laughs and humor I'm sure.

Here's what's in our Mama + Me Airplane Bag

  • Kids Amazon Fire - We did a bit of research before getting V his first tablet (He has no idea, shhhh!). I'm not really a fan of small children being glued to the screen unless they need to for augmentative communication. However, desperate times call for desperate measures! The kids Fire (affiliate) has a child-friendly interface and all their favorite shows/books. It also comes with neat parent controls and since we have amazon prime, we can download videos to view offline.

  • Travel Play-dough Set - I found this (affiliate) cute little travel set for play dough that came in a handy little suitcase. I figured this could keep the both of us entertained on the plane. It's brand new so it won't be so crumbly. Nothing a good lint roller can't clean up.

  • Stickers & Crayons - Another thing we can both enjoy is coloring and stickers. We can't go wrong with an airplane themed sticker book.

  • Melissa & Doug Water Paint - These (affiliate) thing are an absolute favorite of mine! You put water in a brush pen and paint for days. Lol, the water dries and you can repaint.

  • Lunch Box - I packed a small lunch box with a variety of V's favorite snacks. This will keep the crankies away I hope. He loves eating snacks on road trips so I'm sure it will help.

  • Wipes - Those little hands get pretty dirty and you never know when there might be a potty accident of sorts. I have no idea how V will do on an airplane potty so we'll come prepared for leaks.

  • Headphones - I packed two pairs of headphones. One pair for the tablet and the other for noise cancellation. V has often been sensitive to loud noise and this can sometimes cause a few behaviors. I know we can't control noise in every single environment so I brought these just in case.

  • Mamas Things - Since we are sharing a bag, I also brought a few essentials for me. Julian's bear, my sun hat, my scarf, my tech charging cables, phone, and my DSLR. I don't do travel without these. All Packed!

What's in your travel bag? Do you have any mama travel tricks up your sleeve?

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