By Josi Seibert 
We’d never loaded our car to the max like that before. Well, at least not with those types of items.
A pack n play.
A swing.
A nursing pillow.
A plastic bath tub.
A rock n play.
A breast pump.
Diapers and wipes galore.
*Good thing for a husband who dominates packing the car like a game of Tetris.
It had been 23 days (3 weeks) since we accumulated said “foreign” items and welcomed our first bundle of joy. As first-time parents and road trip aficionados, we judged it time to pack up our items and our bundle and hit the open road. From my parents’ homestead in Ayr, NE (where we’re currently living) to Wabash, IN we covered around 2,000 miles, stayed in 9 different homes and visited 160 friends & family. (BTW: Our son is a traveling champ, dreaming all the way!) It had been two years since seeing many of those friendly faces.
Our son made lots of new buddies – he met our best friends, our best friends’ kids (his future bffs), our mentors, our graduate school professors, our work friends, our friends from Ghana, his great grandmother, and his great grandfather. Our son got to experience the bright lights and big city of Chicago, where his mommy and daddy met, fell in love and made their first home.
Of the first 125 days of our son’s life, he’ll spend 65 nights away from “home” – slightly over half of his life. And the nomadic family keeps roving… Next stops: Colorado, Florida and California!
I often wrinkle my nose when I think about transition because of the detachment, the change, the unknown. We’re between continents, between jobs, and between homes. Our transition has been slow so I’ve had time to rest in it and I’ve concluded that floating in between isn’t all that bad. Ours has afforded us time. We can’t help but take advantage of the freedom offered to us in this unique season of life. Because I know when it’s all said and done, I’ll thirst for those days of family togetherness, of spontaneity, of time.
Whether in transition or not, I hope to instill in my son the value of time, of friendship, and of travel. To not hurriedly wish yourself into something else. To simply be with people. To travel to new places and return to old ones.
In 20 years when our son’s college friends ask him where he grew up he’ll say, “In the back of my parents’ Honda Accord.” (At least for now.)
On the road again,
The three transitioning travelers
by Brittany Moore 
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by Ashley Butler 
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by Megan Kewaza 
