It is amazing how life quickly changes when you have a baby. No matter how you convince yourself that you are going to be that 1% parent convinced that everything is going to remain the same, you are fooling yourself and you might as well come to terms quickly that you are going to become THAT parent. Packing for a Hurricane will prove this tenfold.

VIA

As Hurricane Irma became larger and was getting closer and closer to Florida, the seriousness about leaving became imminent. A majority of us left work as early as possible to prep our homes and to p̶l̶a̶n̶ panic silently for an evacuation. We are in Broward County, so we knew we were going to be impacted, but the severity was unknown (note picture above). The Hubs and I are beyond lucky that his mama watches the baby, so we would be able to plan together regarding what our next move was going to be. Being in one car was going to be a bonus since people had been evacuating the day before, roads and highways were sketchy at best so trying to follow one another's car would have proved quite the feat.

I had placed an order with Walmart Grocery the day before and here is a couple things I learned when I thought I was more clever than everyone else (me and apparently ever other mom in the Broward County area). If word of a Hurricane heading to Florida happens again, I will do my due dilligence and order at least four-five days in advance for the pick-up service. There were A LOT of m̶o̶m̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶g̶a̶ ̶p̶a̶n̶t̶s̶ people there all with the same mindframe as me. Yes, I got my groceries, but I waited nearly an hour and half, and a bunch of stuff that I actually needed they were out of. Walmart Grocery versus other services that you pay for does not necessarily tell you that they are out and if no substitutes are available. So if you need anything exact, I suggest you pay the extra couple dollars and use another service. Walmart attendants had to find me subsititutes, which required more time and running back and forth. All in all, I consider myself lucky as some people did not get their groceries at all and had waited the hour and a half just to be told that #youcanimaginehowthatwentover. However, major kudos to the Walmart Grocery pick-up staff! They were cordial, apologetic, kept their cool and the individual helping me ran back TWICE to get the stuff that was missing from the list.

After throwing all the groceries into the freezer, my amazing MIL kept EV entertained while I ran around the house like a chicken with my head cut off gathering all the items I was guarenteed to forget and would obsess over the entire time.

I packed for the Hurricane like I would pack if I ever decided to move into a tiny house (high-five to HGTV for getting me prepared for this very moment). My thought process was if I could only pack the essentials what would they be. As a side note, the only thing I struggled with was my framed wedding dress. Silly I know, but I love it and it was pretty painful not loading it up. Plus, you have no idea the time it took me to frame it myself #pinteresttoldmetoo.

The first thing I packed was every important document we had (Iwish I was kidding and this was also our heaviest bag mind you), mortgage, social security cards, marriage certificate, insurance information, medical records, and of course anything related to EV. I also packed two irreplaceable scrapbooks that had pictures of my dad and I when I was little and all of our USB thumb drives/External Hard Drives that had pictures of our life together, videos, engagement pictures and our wedding album. Luckily with cloud storage, I didn't have to worry about anything else. Looking back on this bag alone, I was incredibly thankful that we were evacuating by car! This was packed first because I was most afraid that this would be the one thing I would forget about.

Digressing for a minute (surprising I know) when we got to where we were staying Sean said outloud "we should have brought all of our important documents" #cuefacepalmemojii....and this ladies and gentlemen is why I packed.

The second thing was EV's clothes and creature comforts of home, this was pretty easy. It involved a lot of onesies, jammies, bows (they are essential I promise you ;)), binkies, and lovies. We use Amazon Family to order her essentials and luckily her monthly box of diapers, cream and lotion had gotten delivered a couple days before, so we just packed the entire box in the car. Here is a lovely side note, when it comes to babies and hurricanes OVERPACK. You heard me and you will thank me, you will never know if you will be able to get the essentials...you know...like formula. Our original plan got altered and thank goodness where we ended up had her Nutramigen formula because otherwise, we would have had quite the issue on our hands. Her diaper bag is ALWAYS packed, so we didn't have to worry about that.

Lastly was clothes and toiletries that could potentially last us a couple weeks. Losing power would mean losing access to the washer and dryer and since we didn't know how long that could be extra clothes would be something we would be grateful for and I am sure those around us would be too. Additional extras I packed were a couple of my grandmother's handbags and her jewlery and since I didn't have a limit to what I could pack, those were thrown in a bag too. Fun fact: once arriving at my MIL's house we ended up re-routing to an Orlando resort courtesy of Sean's awesome company. So much fun having a crying baby in the car for five hours of what should have been a two hour trip said no new mom ever and a two hour check-in line on top of that #truestory.

It is perfectly acceptable to bring a baby to a bar when you are fighting off cabin fever before a storm #youbroughtababytoabar #allthesweetalabamaquotes #dontjudge

However, Westgate Vacation Villas was AWESOME given the fact that we had a category 4 heading right for us (the storm had turned...lucky us), it was on the backend of Disney so it was accessible to all of the parks and DisneySprings (which we frequented several times before and afer the storm), there was a bar and grill on property and because we were not on the main "drag" the grocery stores had all the essentials and barely anyone in them. We had a kitchen and a washer and dryer so we bought plenty of groceries and essentials (#allthebeerandwine) to be able to cook since many places had shut down to let their families prepare. Without a doubt I would stay here again, hopefully sans storm.

Lets just say the storm taught us about the importance of planning and hurricane impact windows that were ordered promptly upon our return home.

Disney Springs resulted in a new furry friend and a love for Irish dancing! And just because I think you all need some cuteness overload....

#HurricaneIrma #preemie #preemiemom #NICUBaby #rainbowbaby #Traveling #PackingwithaBaby #TravelingwithaBaby #HurricaneandBaby #WalmartGrocery