Dishes on the run?

Anyone that has traveled any distance with a baby can more than likely relate to this. On our trip to Baltimore, I found myself doing dishes each night. Any kind of travel you shouldn’t have to do dishes, right? Well with a 6 month old girl who uses 4-5 bottles a day and a 2 ½ year old son who has only mastered the use of a certain kind of Sippy cup that meant that “momma” was doing dishes on the road.


So not only did we take two pack and plays, two suitcases, a double stroller, baby food, formula, water for the formula, books, toys, portable feeding chair, Luke’s walker, diaper bags, Luke’s own plates and forks and spoons, Faith’s own bowls and spoons, and a cooler. But, because I needed to do dishes each night we took a wash basin and dish rack (along with a bottle brush and Dawn).

By the second night I learned that using the bathroom sink wasn’t the easiest thing to do. So I opted for the bathtub. I knew it might not be the most sanitary thing, so I made my best effort to not allow anything I was washing to actually hit the tub. So I’d fill up the wash basin with hot soapy water. Then I would proceed to scrub everything down, starting with the bottles and working my past the Sippy cups, plates, bowls , and finally down to the forks and spoons. (If I didn’t have to feed both kids in the backseat the whole trip I could of saved some washing time in not needed the plates, bowls, and utensils).

Anyway, after scrubbing each thing I had to decide where to put it until I could rinse them off. (I didn’t want to keep the water running this whole time, because usually Luke was finally asleep and the bathroom was right next to him and I didn’t want to risk waking him up or keeping him awake). So I put the soapy dishes in the dish rack, then once I was done “scrubbing” I dumped out the soapy water from the wash basin and then rinsed it out and filled it with non-soapy hot water. Then I would put all the dishes back into the wash basin to rinse them off. Once they were rinsed I put them all back into the dish rack.

Needless to say, this all took much longer to do than what it normally does at home. After doing this for 5 nights I came to the conclusion that no one has really “done dishes” until they have done them in the bathroom of a hotel.