Thursday, April 29, 2010

The Big Trip, Part 3

Once we de-planed onto the tarmac and took the bus to the terminal (with much help from the team in lugging masses of kid gear, and no help from the double stroller, which went with the rest of the luggage to baggage claim), it was smooth sailing through customs and baggage claim. We made a phone call to our hotel to have their airport shuttle pick us up, and they told us it would be 30 minutes (translation in local time: at least an hour). By then, it was, like, 8:30pm, and that’s rush hour around there. So, we waited in the lobby. And waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, Tim made another call to the hotel. According to them, there was just too much traffic, so they weren’t coming. Of course not, right? Thankfully, since we had been there before, Robert knew where to get transportation without getting totally ripped off with major tourist-price mark-ups. We managed to get a small bus, maybe 1.5 or 2 hours after we landed, and we were off. We were prepared and had decent info to give the driver to help him get there, and even spoke a little Arabic to help us communicate. He still ended up calling them to get directions, but at least we had the phone number and it wasn’t the middle of the night.

Finally, we got there, except, not quite. The street the hotel is on is a side street that you can’t get at from the parallel main street. After circling around the block and not being able to get on the right series of side streets, our driver decided that he would back up to get to the hotel. We convinced him to try circling once more, but the result was the same. So, we conceded that backing up might be the best option, after all. Now, we’re not talking a short back up, here. It was at least 200 yards, maybe more, in rush hour. Insane. The thing about driving there is that just about anything goes. There are really no lanes, and even if there were, everyone would just ignore them. Our driving backward apparently didn’t really faze anyone else, because there was no more honking than usual (which is to say, there was a lot of honking on both our part and everyone else’s). It was a very surreal moment for our first major experience there. Thankfully, we made it to the hotel in one piece, and didn’t even hit anyone. Our driver got a good tip.

Up the old, rickety elevator we went to the 6th floor to check in. After much discussion back and forth with Robert and the people at the front desk, it was determined that, in spite of what we had understood, we did NOT have a reservation. The travel agency had only emailed them to check pricing, but hadn’t actually booked us there. GREAT. But, God is good, and they had enough rooms for our whole team. Talk about an exercise in trusting Him! He always provides. By this time, we were starving, so we had them order us in some food. I put the girls to bed in their travel tents, ate a few bites, and then crashed. It was late at that point, and we had to get up in the morning.

Many details of the nights there are a little fuzzy at this point, but I think the nighttime waking for the girls started on the first night and pretty much continued through the entire trip. Katherine spent some time in my bed (there were 2 full-size beds, so Robert & I each took one). There was crying, and talking, and nursing, and bottles, and a lot of wakefulness. When you’re all in one room, if one kid is awake, everyone is pretty much awake. Not sleeping at night = cranky kids and parents. This would play out throughout the trip, and I’ll get to that in the next post.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The Power of Flexibility

As someone who scores pretty strongly as a "J" on the Myers-Briggs, being a parent presents an extra challenge, in my opinion. I like to have a schedule. I'm a planner. I like to know how things are going to go. I get an idea in my mind of how the day is going to play out, and I like to stick to it as much as possible. That's my nature.

Of course, things don't always go according to plan. That's inevitable. But, having children multiplies exponentially the possibility of reality differing from expectations. If you're planning to stay home all day, getting off schedule isn't such a big deal, since you have a fair amount of control over your environment. But, throw in an event you have to attend that starts at a time incompatible to the routine, and you're asking for a challenge.

Kids naturally thrive when they're on a schedule. This works out well for a J-type. BUT, they also couldn't possibly care less about the schedule mommy may need to keep. I try to work my life around their schedules as much as possible, but they're experts at throwing a wrench into the cogs of the well-oiled machine I plan out. Let's say I'm supposed to be somewhere at 9:00am, with a 45-minute drive time, and hope Jillian will take a nap while I'm there until 11:00 (which would be within her normal naptime range at the moment). She decides to wake up early. Or late. She doesn't sleep while we're there. Or, she falls asleep in the car on the way there or back and takes only the briefest of naps. Or, she falls asleep late there, with the same result. This throws off her eating schedule, too, and perhaps affects whether or not she'll sleep through the night (a rarity at the moment). And so on, and so forth.

This is where flexibility comes in. I don't believe one can be a parent and hold onto sanity without learning to roll with the punches. If you can't be willing to discard your plans and/or learn to let some stuff go with the kids' eating/sleeping/whatever, you will drive yourself stark raving mad. Seriously. Every day, I learn to go against my natural tendencies, or risk constant disappointment over unmet expectations. I do it because I love my children, and that's what's best for the family. It's not about me.

I think one (parent or otherwise) must take a similar tack when interacting with God. He's not overly concerned about my plans. He's got a plan of his own. I end up with a lot less cognitive dissonance if I'm willing to let my own expectations go and roll with whatever He's got going on instead. Easier said than done, but I strive to do it every day, just like I do with my kids.

This came into play pretty seriously during the trip, and I promise to get back to posting about that soon. It's been a busy week, and will continue to be. Never a dull moment!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

This is all happening so fast

Yesterday (or the day before?), Jillian started pulling to a standing position on things--mostly me. Today, she started pulling up on the couch and moving along the side of it while holding on. A LOT has changed in the last 2.5 weeks. Talk about a development spurt! Much of my time at the moment is spent as a human rock wall. That girl is a little monkey!

A side note about nursing in public

This doesn't have to do with a specific part of the trip, but this challenge was interwoven throughout the whole thing, and reaches beyond just the travel portion of my life. Nursing in public is a hot-button issue, particularly in Western culture where breasts are such a sexualized thing. The whole thing just seems to make the vast majority of people uncomfortable. We think of boobs as sexual objects, so even when they're being used for their primarily designed, utilitarian purpose, everyone gets all scandalized. I get it. In our society, looking at boobs is kind-of a no-no (although a LOT of people do it, obviously, what with the current porn pandemic we've got going on), and it must be quite a temptation when one gets whipped out (indecent exposure!), even if it's mostly covered by a baby head. Because of this, I use a nursing cover out of respect for those around me.

During this trip, Jillian was almost 9 months old. She has been Squirmy McKickengrab her whole life, and that has only intensified as she has grown. The bigger and stronger she gets, the more effective her squirming, grabbing, kicking and climbing get. She's also quite particular and opinionated, especially with regard to body positioning, both in general and while nursing. Add to that a propensity for easy distraction (at its greatest while nursing), and you're asking for trouble when trying to nurse in public with a nursing cover. I think my sense of modesty has progressively decreased as I've nursed, but I do still try to be mindful of those around me. My general feeling is that I'll do my best to stay covered, but if someone gets a flash by accident, whatever. They shouldn't be looking, anyway, and if they are, well, it's just a boob. Probably nothing they haven't seen before. Jillian makes it quite difficult because she's not a fan of the nursing cover, and she can easily pull it off. She thinks it's it's a hilarious game, and invariably laughs once she's uncovered. It's highly frustrating for me, and I've had a few times when I've been tempted to just let her nurse uncovered, but without much of anything really showing. One such a time was on our flight to SLC. I was all the way in the back of the plane, and nobody was really looking. There was a guy across the aisle in the row in front of us who, according to Robert, was trying to sneak a peek, although I didn't catch him. Robert was a little mortified, especially because this trip had such an overall focus on modesty, so our mindset was to show less skin than ever, and certainly not something so taboo. But, sometimes you have to do what you have to do to get a baby to eat.

I was determined not to let this trip derail my nursing relationship with Jillian, since the last time we did this, it was the end of nursing with Katherine. She was almost a year old at that point, and had been fighting me on nursing for a couple of months prior to the trip. So, it wasn't the end of the world. But I didn't want to end nursing this early with Jillian. I am proud to say that I was successful in that endeavor, but not without a lot of work. There were several times when I had to abort an attempt to nurse in public (including one time when we were in country and Jillian was being totally uncooperative in the middle of a crowded McDonald's).

So, in summary, nursing in public is complicated, and I wish people weren't so puritanical about something that God designed to be a natural, biological, utilitarian, non-sexual function. Not gonna happen, though, so I'll just soldier on.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

The Big Trip, Part 2

The morning of the day we left was actually relatively normal, except for all the last minute pre-travel stuff. Jillian even got a morning nap. When Super Shuttle came to pick us up, we loaded our ridiculous amounts of baggage in and off we went. Things at the airport went relatively smoothly, as much as they can when you're taking ridiculous amounts of baggage and two small children and everything that goes with them through security. The short flight to SLC was pretty uneventful, but it was a little bit late. As you may recall, our turnaround time between flights was less than 45 minutes. We found out that our departure flight to Charles de Gaulle was also running a little late, so that took some pressure off. Once we landed, most of the team made a mad dash for the next gate. Our family waited until most of the people were off the plane, since we had so much to carry and would have to wait for a gate-checked stroller anyway. Thankfully, our departure gate was across the hall and a few gates down, so it was a quick jaunt. There was no pre-boarding, alas, but we made it on without much problem at all. Whew!

The overseas flight was long, of course, but it actually went pretty well, even with small children. There were frustrating moments and not a lot of sleep for anyone, and Katherine's diaper leaked at one point (thankfully, it was only pee), and we weren't all sitting quite together (Jillian & I were, at times, in front of or behind Robert, Katherine & Grandma), but hey, we made it and didn't really get the stink-eye from other passengers, so I call that a win. Once in Paris, we had to make our way to another terminal by bus. At some point just prior to that excursion, I realized that my cell phone was somewhere on the plane, and there was no going back. Bummer, but c'est la vie. We later had it shut off so as not to incur crazy charges from anyone who might try to use in in Europe.

Once we found our gate, the ladies went to the bathroom put on their head coverings. (Side note: I try to abide by local modesty rules when traveling, so if the majority of women cover their skin and hair where I am, I cover it, too. Not only does it show respect for the local culture, but it helps avoid an awful lot of harassment. I adjust my wardrobe before the flight into the country, so as to be dressed properly when I arrive.) I know there are a lot of Muslim women in France, and we saw a few, but it's still strange to walk around with a hijab on in a non-Muslim country, especially when you are clearly a Whitey McWhiterton. We got a few looks, to be sure. It's strange--once I put the covering on, I feel like I'm part of a club or something. It's almost like going into character. I'm still me, but my perception of my environment changes, and my perception of how others are perceiving me changes. Whether or not my perception is accurate is another story. Hard to say.

Anyway, not long before we got on the plane Jillian was getting super over-tired and fussy. I put her in the sling and she was out in no time. Unfortunately, that didn't last long, because she woke up as we were boarding. As we sat on the plane waiting to depart, I was doing my best to placate her and get her back to sleep, but she was getting more and more worked up between periods of calm. To top it off, the flight attendant informed me that I couldn't have her in the car seat for take-off, but would have to abide by European rules and use the baby seat belt, which attaches to my lap belt. At first, I was distraught, because the only thing that was making Jillian happy was to be facing me, over my shoulder and/or snuggled against my stomach. But then, we figured maybe we could just fasten the belt around her while she was backward, and that worked out pretty well. Both of us fell asleep not long after take-off (mommy was over-tired, too!), and I woke up just in time for the in-flight meal. Jillian, mercifully, did NOT wake up. So, I ate the whole meal somewhat reclined with a baby asleep on my belly. Tricky, but possible. I had been concerned that this last leg of the trip would be a nightmare, but it actually turned out pretty well. The flight attendants were really nice and helpful, the food was good, and they even had little toy packs for Katherine and Jillian. Hooray for Air France! I had wondered if I would be treated poorly because of my hijab (that actually happened last time we left NEA on a KLM flight), but everyone was really great. We reached our destination mostly without incident, and de-planed with help from the team, who were awesome and carried some of our bags. Unfortunately, when you de-plane at our destination airport, it's on the tarmac, and you have to take a bus to the terminal. Actually, the unfortunate part is that strollers go with the rest of the baggage, so instead of using my double stroller to lug Jillian in her car seat, Katherine's car seat, and any other bags we could fit on there, we had to lug it all by hand. Urgh. But, we made it there, through customs, through baggage claim and into the lobby without too much trouble. The girls were even in reasonable spirits, if tired. Now, all we have to do is get to our hotel. At this point, it was evening time, so we were all ready to get some dinner, get settled in and crash. Is that how it happened? Of course not.

I'll save that story for the next post.

Mobile Upload

Jillian is officially crawling. She did her first real crawl on Easter (4/4/10) with both sets of grandparents present, which was really cool. Now, a couple days later, she's motoring everywhere. All she wants to do if I'm near is crawl over and climb all over me. Man, that is one grabby little girl. She can pretty much pull to a standing position by herself, mostly on me. She hasn't done it in her crib yet, that I've seen, so we haven't had to lower the mattress, but it won't be long.

By the way, when I say motoring, I'm not kidding. Her latest favorite things to do vocally are growling and blowing raspberries, and when she does them whilst crawling, she really brings to mind a little car. It's ridiculously cute. I'm trying to get a video of it to post on here. We'll see if I'm successful!