If you're looking for something to occupy your child on that long road trip or plane ride, I highly recommend Roger Priddy's 1000 Sticker book. We're actually on our second copy of the book for my 22-month old. The stickers *are* somewhat small, but there are a lot of them and there are color-coded pages and numbers "cut outs" so the kids can match the stickers to the "cut outs". I also like that the sticker pages are coded by category, for example, the alphabet, numbers, colors, different kinds of animals, etc. The price -- around $8.50 -- is also great considering the entertainment value. The first time I gave the book to my kid, she spent a good 45 minutes sticking stickers all over herself. It's only with this second time around that she realizes there are additional activity pages and with my help, she's able to place the stickers in the right place.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Link of the Day
A sober reminder to check your vaccinations to make sure they are up to date when traveling overseas; particularly sobering is the infection of a 4-month old infant who is clearly too young to receive a vaccination for measles:
More information here: Measles outbreak tied to megachurch.
An outbreak of measles tied to a Texas megachurch where ministers have questioned vaccination has sickened at least 21 people, including a 4-month-old infant -- and it’s expected to grow, state and federal health officials said.
[...]
All of the cases are linked to the Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, Texas, where a visitor who’d traveled to Indonesia became infected with measles – and then returned to the U.S., spreading it to the largely unvaccinated church community, said Russell Jones, the Texas state epidemiologist.
More information here: Measles outbreak tied to megachurch.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Travel is like a box of chocolates
I think one of the reasons why travel with children can be stressful is you never, ever know what version of your child is going to show up. When we embarked on our first international trip, the husband and I were a bit nervous because it was, after all, a 30-hour trip from start to finish (one way!), but we felt comfortable that we had the domestic leg of the trip down. After all, before making this trip, we'd already made multiple trips across the country with baby and they had all gone swimmingly. So as we arrived at the airport on the morning of our big adventure, we told ourselves the trouble would start over the Pacific; the three and a half hour leg to California would be cake.
I still remember how frazzled we were the morning of our departure. Our flight left fairly early, before 8 am, and we were all cranky from not getting enough sleep and baby didn't like having been woken up well before her usual 7:30 am wake-up. On top of that, we had a lot of stuff. A LOT OF STUFF. After all, we were heading halfway around the world to Singapore and then after that to Japan and we would be gone for nearly two months. I thought we had packed relatively light, but I quickly reconsidered that as I watched the husband load suitcase after suitcase into the taxi cab. Five suitcases, one diaper bag, one backpack, a carseat, a stroller, a purse, camera bag and Go-Go Babyz Kidz Travelmate later, we looked at each other, kind of in shock: How the heck were we going to maneuver all this stuff AND a baby? We were both super relieved we had decided to call our trusty cab driver Louis to take us to the airport because there was no way we would have been able to fit everything into the long-term parking shuttle bus.
We made it to the terminal and lucky us, found a cart that someone had neglected to return to the rental station. We took this as a good sign and loaded all of our stuff onto the cart and headed over to the United counter to check-in. Since we have elite status on United, our bags didn't cost us anything extra, thank goodness. At that point, I was well ready to leave something (all of it?) behind. We made it through security fairly easily though TSA did give us some issues with the amount of baby food and formula we were carrying onboard the flight. We pointed out we were traveling 30 hours from here to Singapore and after some additional security procedures, we were allowed to pass.
We breathed a sigh of relief once we got on the plane and made ourselves as comfortable as possible. This was, after all, going to be the easiest part of the trip, right? RIGHT? Wrong. Things started going south almost immediately. The plane's departure was delayed and we had timed our fussy baby's bottle wrong. In our previous trial runs domestically (the most recent being just 3 weeks before to Myrtle Beach), we had done beautifully timing the bottle to coincide with the roar of the jet engines and the combination always made baby fall asleep. Not this time. Baby drank all of her formula and then refused -- REFUSED! -- to sleep. None of this would have been an issue if our sweet wonderful baby hadn't suddenly evolved into a banshee. Yes, we were THOSE people on the airplane, the ones every other passenger alternately feels furious at and then sorry for.
We figured baby was hungry so we gave her a food pouch which she promptly squirted all over herself and then over the seat and a bit on us, her completely perplexed parents. We changed her clothes and I was mentally congratulating myself for packing two outfits in her diaper bag so we had this. A few minutes later, we smelled the tell-tale stink of a poopy diaper. More screaming. I couldn't get down the aisle because the beverage service was in progress and so I started setting up on the floor of the airplane only to be reprimanded by the flight attendant (more on changing diapers on a plane here and here). So we sat there with our miserable stinky baby (but hey, at least her clothes were clean!) until I could make my way down to the bathroom to change the diaper.
By the time we made it to San Francisco, we'd been asked by half a dozen people what our final destination was and we could see palpable relief when they realized they wouldn't be traveling any further with us. A couple of people sympathized with us but yeah, it was mostly relief. We were among the last to drag our miserable selves off the plane and in our frazzled tired state, we didn't realize we had left part of our carseat on the plane. That led to whole 'nother "adventure" that involved running through multiple terminals and trying to get back onto our original aircraft, only to be told too bad, so sad; the plane had already been cleaned and our carseat attachment was on the other side of security. We looked at each other, hot and sweaty, still weighed down by all our stuff, and tried not to dwell too much on the fact that we still had two planes and 27 hours more to go.
I still remember how frazzled we were the morning of our departure. Our flight left fairly early, before 8 am, and we were all cranky from not getting enough sleep and baby didn't like having been woken up well before her usual 7:30 am wake-up. On top of that, we had a lot of stuff. A LOT OF STUFF. After all, we were heading halfway around the world to Singapore and then after that to Japan and we would be gone for nearly two months. I thought we had packed relatively light, but I quickly reconsidered that as I watched the husband load suitcase after suitcase into the taxi cab. Five suitcases, one diaper bag, one backpack, a carseat, a stroller, a purse, camera bag and Go-Go Babyz Kidz Travelmate later, we looked at each other, kind of in shock: How the heck were we going to maneuver all this stuff AND a baby? We were both super relieved we had decided to call our trusty cab driver Louis to take us to the airport because there was no way we would have been able to fit everything into the long-term parking shuttle bus.
We made it to the terminal and lucky us, found a cart that someone had neglected to return to the rental station. We took this as a good sign and loaded all of our stuff onto the cart and headed over to the United counter to check-in. Since we have elite status on United, our bags didn't cost us anything extra, thank goodness. At that point, I was well ready to leave something (all of it?) behind. We made it through security fairly easily though TSA did give us some issues with the amount of baby food and formula we were carrying onboard the flight. We pointed out we were traveling 30 hours from here to Singapore and after some additional security procedures, we were allowed to pass.
We breathed a sigh of relief once we got on the plane and made ourselves as comfortable as possible. This was, after all, going to be the easiest part of the trip, right? RIGHT? Wrong. Things started going south almost immediately. The plane's departure was delayed and we had timed our fussy baby's bottle wrong. In our previous trial runs domestically (the most recent being just 3 weeks before to Myrtle Beach), we had done beautifully timing the bottle to coincide with the roar of the jet engines and the combination always made baby fall asleep. Not this time. Baby drank all of her formula and then refused -- REFUSED! -- to sleep. None of this would have been an issue if our sweet wonderful baby hadn't suddenly evolved into a banshee. Yes, we were THOSE people on the airplane, the ones every other passenger alternately feels furious at and then sorry for.
We figured baby was hungry so we gave her a food pouch which she promptly squirted all over herself and then over the seat and a bit on us, her completely perplexed parents. We changed her clothes and I was mentally congratulating myself for packing two outfits in her diaper bag so we had this. A few minutes later, we smelled the tell-tale stink of a poopy diaper. More screaming. I couldn't get down the aisle because the beverage service was in progress and so I started setting up on the floor of the airplane only to be reprimanded by the flight attendant (more on changing diapers on a plane here and here). So we sat there with our miserable stinky baby (but hey, at least her clothes were clean!) until I could make my way down to the bathroom to change the diaper.
By the time we made it to San Francisco, we'd been asked by half a dozen people what our final destination was and we could see palpable relief when they realized they wouldn't be traveling any further with us. A couple of people sympathized with us but yeah, it was mostly relief. We were among the last to drag our miserable selves off the plane and in our frazzled tired state, we didn't realize we had left part of our carseat on the plane. That led to whole 'nother "adventure" that involved running through multiple terminals and trying to get back onto our original aircraft, only to be told too bad, so sad; the plane had already been cleaned and our carseat attachment was on the other side of security. We looked at each other, hot and sweaty, still weighed down by all our stuff, and tried not to dwell too much on the fact that we still had two planes and 27 hours more to go.
Friday, August 16, 2013
Special offer from Amazon Mom!
If you're planning on a trip and want to stock up on some new toys for the kiddos,
Join Amazon Mom to get 20% off select toys through August 23.
Join Amazon Mom to get 20% off select toys through August 23.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Happy August 1st!
I know it's been a while since my last post, but I had a good reason, honest! My in-laws were in town for a week so we spent the week prior to their visit getting the house in ship-shape and then after they left, we were still motivated by the projects we'd begun before they came and it just slipped my mind to come and update the blog.
That being said, I want to talk about visiting grandparents and the impact on kids. Not so much a travel story, but I've noticed since my kid has gotten older, she has become much, much more aware of the people around her and she develops deep and strong attachments to certain people. She is very interested and attached to both sets of grandparents and so when they leave after visiting, she's definitely a sad little cookie.
Since both sets of grandparents live out of town and don't visit frequently, we've taken to Skyping them quite frequently. At my daughter's age, she just wants to see their faces, maybe say a few words. Her attention span is quite literally 30 seconds for nearly any activity, even for beloved grandparents! However, I've noticed once she sees their faces on the computer screen, she's a much happier kid. It's almost like she needs to be reassured that they are still out there and not gone forever. It also helps to show her pictures of the visit so she can remember some of the happy times they spent together.
As she gets older, I'm sure the Skype conversations will get more involved and she will be more participatory. I'm just glad she'll be able to maintain relationships with out-of-town relatives so easily and fluidly. Isn't technology grand?
That being said, I want to talk about visiting grandparents and the impact on kids. Not so much a travel story, but I've noticed since my kid has gotten older, she has become much, much more aware of the people around her and she develops deep and strong attachments to certain people. She is very interested and attached to both sets of grandparents and so when they leave after visiting, she's definitely a sad little cookie.
Since both sets of grandparents live out of town and don't visit frequently, we've taken to Skyping them quite frequently. At my daughter's age, she just wants to see their faces, maybe say a few words. Her attention span is quite literally 30 seconds for nearly any activity, even for beloved grandparents! However, I've noticed once she sees their faces on the computer screen, she's a much happier kid. It's almost like she needs to be reassured that they are still out there and not gone forever. It also helps to show her pictures of the visit so she can remember some of the happy times they spent together.
As she gets older, I'm sure the Skype conversations will get more involved and she will be more participatory. I'm just glad she'll be able to maintain relationships with out-of-town relatives so easily and fluidly. Isn't technology grand?
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