Tips for Travelling with Children

Our trip to and from California was about 12 hours total between car and plane.  Travelling with two small children is by no means impossible, but there were definitely tricks that helped us along the way that I thought I would share!

For babies:

-Give them as much non-held time as possible in between flights.  We kept Gracie out of her car seat whenever we werent in the car so that it would make being held for the durations of the flight a little easier.

-Have tylenol on hand!

-Take the window seat.  It gives you more room to nurse or hold a sleeping baby without fear of the beverage cart smucking your arm.

-Believe in the kindness of strangers:  Gracelyn cried HARD on half of our flights.  As much as it sucked, there was nothing I could do.  I was approached following both of these flights by people who told me that they were glad she was feeling better after landing, and telling me how cute she was.  It was a relief not to be given the stink eye!  I just tried to focus on the fact that no matter how bad it was for other passengers, it was way worse for me!

For Toddlers:

-Make a special backpack.  Before the trip, I bought a new backpack for Abby and let her pick a few toys, things to color, and books.  Before we left, I bought a few new inexpensive items and snacks and snuck them in different places.  Whenever she got bored, I would pull out something new and she was so excited!

-Relax the ruies:  For me, this involved snacks.  I let her have juice on every flight, candy at 10 pm and french fries.  Flying was really exciting for her, so I wanted to make it into a special day.

-Embrace the excitement.  Abby was so wired about flying, that she loudly announced that she was ready to fly as all the other passengers were boarding our first flight.  We just let her go about her manic rambling and everyone else seemed to think it was cute.

In general:

-Pack as little as possible!  I knew I had laundry available, so I packed only five outfits for each girl.  It is tempting to do more, but it is a lot to lug around!

-Buy whatever you can when you get there.  Things like diapers, sunscreen, etc that I would need more of I bought when I was there so that I could pack lighter.  I use this stuff anyway, so I may as well save myself squeezing it in a suitcase.  I also always buy a cheap highchair or booster when I am there for $25-40 to save lugging things.

-KNOW WHERE YOUR BAGGAGE CARTS ARE!  We packed lightly, and still had one big suitcase, golf clubs, a pack and play, two small suitcases, a stroller, 3 carry ons and 2 carseats to take into each airport.  To try to carry this any distance was crazy!

We had such a fantastic trip, but the travelling was definitely a little taxing and made for long days.  I would do it again and again though!

7 Months

Gracer,

You are now closer to a year than you are to a newborn.  At seven months you are growing by leaps and bounds, both physically and mentally.  The biggest excitement is that you are officially on the growth chart!  Just barely touching the 3rd percentile, but you are finally on there and your father, myself and Dr. A are stoked about it! 

You seem to be growing like a weed, and it is no surprise because you love to eat!  You have yet to turn up your nose at any food, and are getting quite adept at manipulating foods into your mouth.  Abby loves to share any food that you are allowed to eat with you, and you gobble up purees as though they are going to be taken away from you.

You are a smiley baby and have recently started to do a very selective, queen like wave.  This always starts off very tentatively and then your confidence grows as you are cheered on.  You have also developed this hearty, spontaneous belly laugh that you bring out when you feel really happy, even if no one is trying to make you laugh. 

You are a champion at sitting now and have finally started to roll from your back to your tummy, and do some precrawling.  You abandon this pretty quickly after you start it, but at least you are tolerating a little more tummy time!  You also thump your legs like a wild mermaid when you are laying on your back, and can turn in circles.

You love to be outside and seem to have a particular fondness for the zoo and being in a carrier or stroller without a carseat.  You love watching people and feeling the wind on your face.  You like playing on the slides, but dont care too much for the swings (unless you are watching your sister, in which case you are in stitches the whole time!).

People stop me all the time to tell me what a beautiful baby you are, and it is true.  You are a precious little soul, and I am shocked that I somehow love you more every day.  I thank God for gifting me with you every day, and love watching you grow.

Love,

Mama

 

Little Buddies

I feel like i am in the best days with the girls right now. Little Gracelyn is so giggly and getting so independent with play. She is sitting now, and really loves using her new skill. Her favourite things to do are Jolly Jumping, playing toys and pretending Abby is a horsey. She also loves goobering all over her sister while I sing “I want to kiss you all over, and over again…”, and Abby is just as delighted. It is so fun watching them make each other laugh and squeal, and I feel like I am getting a glimpse into a friendship they will have in the future.

You know, before they eventually start hating each other. Lol.

Abby is growing up so fast, and she definitely likes to do what Mama does. She likes to play “grown up”, which looks a little something like this:

*knocks on door, comes in and pretends to take off coat and boots. Gives me pretend coat to hang up

“Hi Mama, I home from wurk. I go to hobital and take care of sick bebes. Give dem Tylenol” (PS…my kid is obsessed with Tylenol).
“Can I have a coffee? SugarfreeMOCHA with soy milk please”

*pretends to put back on imaginary clothing

“Ok, I gotta go wurk now. Love you sweetie”.

She also loves to get coffee with me from Starbucks, and now insists that the milk she get be called a coffee. Thankfully the baristas in our neighborhood are sweet and humor her.

She also loves going to “the shobbing store” and mall with me, and is such a little grownup sometimes. It is so much fun and such a privlege to be able to hang out with my cool little ladies every day. I am blessed that I will be going back to a job where I wont be working Monday to Friday and still get to spend random days having picnics on our living room floor, playing at the park, and taking in Wednesday movies.

Solitary Confinement

Last week Tyler transitioned from his winter shift of 4am-12:30pm to his normal day shift of 7am-4pm. While I hate his wintershift and how it messes with our family life, it did have it’s advantages.

The main advantage was that Tyler was home in the afternoon during nap time. After lunch, the girls both nap, and Tyler normally would too. This left me free to run errands or meet up with friends either childless, or just with Gracelyn. I am not the kind of stay at home mom who necessarily likes to stay home. We are usually out of the house every day for a few hours, whether it be to run around, go to stroller fit or just head to the park. Cold days we generally go to the mall, library or indoor play center.

It was quite a shift for me when Tyler wasn’t home anymore. All the sudden I was stuck in my house for hours on end. Now, I know that this is a wonderful problem to have, but both girls nap at the same time, and usually for anywhere between 2.5-4 hours at a time. I am literally trapped in my house at this time!

Fortunately, I have friends who pop in, and it does give me a good chance to do laundry, clean, and do food prep for that night’s meal. I am able to get a workout in (and will be extending this once I get my treadmill!) and make phonecalls without little voices in the background.

I feel guilty just sitting around and doing nothing. At first, any time I picked up a book and read I was twitchy, thinking about other things that I should be doing. I am slowly coming around to embracing this time as strictly “me” time. It is a chance for me to put my feet up, do some reading or watch TV and enjoy a coffee. Which is exactly what I am going to do now while my little anges snooze away

6 Months

Gracelyn,

How is it possible that half a year has passed since I first held you in my arms? I think your small size is deceiving me into believing that time is passing more slowly than it is.

At 6 months, you have really come into your own little personality and I can’t really describe you as anything other than a joy. You are such a good baby, and I thank you for that! I feel so blessed that you and I didn’t struggle with any issues like nursing or sleeping. You seem to just be a laid back little girl who knows what to do.

Now, that being said, I will admit that you can be a stink sometimes. If something displeases you are you don’t get your way, you can definitely use your lungs. For example, you have been known to go from happy babbles to desperate screams when I walk into a room and you realize I am not holding you. You are a Mama’s girl for sure, and love to be held and cuddled.

You love to play and are quite tactile. You always wants to be holding something and lunge at anything in your path. Like your sister, you havea particular affinity for Starbuck’s cups. It is absolutely no fun eating anything around you, because you lunge for whatever I am holding.

You are now eating solids and rarely turn your little nose up to a meal. You are such an eager little eater that I don’t even need to put a bib on you, because not much misses your mouth! You don’t really love feeding yourself, and prefer to just wave food around. Even though you need two towels underneath you, you like to sit in your highchair and play with toys or cheerios. You can pick them up, but refuse to put them in your mouth!

You are close to sitting, but not quite there yet. You can balance for a good length of times some days, and others you topple right over the minute I let you go. All in good time baby!

You adore being outdoors and really enjoy being in the Snuggli. You delight in fresh air and the world around you, and loved the zoo on a recent trip. You like going down slides at the park and watching your sister play.

Gracelyn, you are a joy and I am so blessed that I get to spend every day with you. You are a huge piece of my heart, and every day I marvel that I can possibly love you more than I did the day before. I can’t believe that I am lucky enough to call you mine, you beautiful girl.

Love,
Mama

Promises

Lately I have been talking about promises a lot with Abby. Whenever I promise something, I always follow it up by saying “a promise is a promise” (something that my Mom use to always say) or “when I make a promise, I never, EVER, break that promise” (from Tangled, lol).

Promises are important to me and I pride myself on always keeping my promise. For example, with the horrible weather we had, Abby was dying to go to the park. I promised her we would go on the next nice day, and sure enough that was today. To be honest, today was a busy one and not the best one to have picked, but despite that I took her, and made sure to let her know that I was fulfilling my promise by doing so.

With all of this talk about promises, I didn’t really explain why it is actually important not to break a promise. So tonight, after Abby got out of bed, I asked her to promise me she would stay back in. I sat there with her on my lap and explained as best as I could why it is important to keep your word. After that, she looked at me with her big blue eyes and said “I promise Mama”.

Oh, my heart.

Sure enough, Abby has kept her word (so far) and that means a lot to me. There are a lot of responsibilities as a mother (or parent) to raise and shape a socially responsible child. You can only hope you are doing your best and imparting morality in a way that sticks with them. This is a small victory, but an important one for me, and helps me to feel like we are going down the right path with our little girl.

Skinny Minny, part 4

Gracelyn went back to the pediatrician on Monday, and I have received lots of questions about how it went, so I thought I would update again!

As of two weeks ago, Gracelyn weighed 9 lbs, 15 oz. Yesterday she weighed 10 lbs 15 oz (post feed…in reality she is probably 4-5 oz less but I couldn’t hold her off!). I was so pumped to see such a great (for her) gain, and that she is now in double digits on the scale!

This gain represents less than half the optimal gain for a baby her age, but both myself and Dr. A were encouraged. She is still so far below the 3rd percentile that she continues to not register on the chart, but her length is now in the 50th percentile, and her head, although small, has grown as well. Based on her physical assessment and that she is bright and active the decision was made that we will continue to give her some time to see what she can do on her own.

We will follow up again in 2 months unless she shows some measure of poor health. At that time, if she continues to follow the same pattern we will do some blood work. Dr. A is confident that this bloodwork will yield nothing but piece of mind, but would feel negligant not to explore that area if she continues on this track.

The only other thing we did was to add some lactulose into her diet to help her with her scream-inducing bowel movements. I would have preferred to add in fruits and veggies, but given her poor tolerance to any change in diet (digestively) he felt it was better to let her gut mature a little more.

So, yay! I can’t express how grateful I am to be seeing such a level headed pediatrician. Again, supplementation was not even discussed, and that helps keep my mind at ease that my instincts are right. I know lots of other people who seem to be nitpicked about their babies weight and are sent to lactation consultants and advised to frequently weigh their little ones. I am not sure if it is because I am a nurse or if it is just the health professionals I have dealt with, but everyone has had a very relaxed approach to my pint sized little lady.

Gracelyn goes to the doctor again next Monday for her 6 month check, so hopefully she will continue to post some big numbers!