A Seasoned Traveller

Last week we went to visit my parents in Seattle. It was The Chub's 3rd round trip flight. I am always amazed at how well she does despite being extremely tired and lugged back and forth in her infant carrier for hours. We received many compliments on what a good baby she was. She always seems to be the star of the show when we fly.

We had a wonderful time.

Things I will miss:

1)Spending time with family and friends.
I think this one is self explanatory

2) Having free babysitting.
My parents watched The Chubadub if we needed to run errands and my mom watched her late one night so we could have a date.

3) Being cooked for.

• I had my favorite home cooked meals on a daily basis, my mom even made me grilled cheese just like she did when I was a kid.
• Dessert and more dessert. My wonderful father cooked me my favorite chocolate swirl cheesecake and my mom made toffee bars twice.
• My dad made his traditional cornmeal waffles with strawberries and whipped cream for breakfast the day before we left. It's making me hungry just thinking about it.
  

4) Having a laundry service.
As you know, having a baby means you go through tons of laundry each week. My mom was constantly washing clothes and spit rags for us. It was a-maz-ing.

5) Downtown Seattle.

• Still love those ferry rides across the Puget Sound
• Got to visit our favorite Burger Stop
• Had a chocolate Croissant at the little french bakery I love at Pike Place Market
• Had dinner at our favorite restaurant on Alki right around sunset with a beautiful view of the Sound and downtown Seattle.
  

Things I will NOT miss:

1) The traffic. Oh the traffic!

• I forgot how terrible the driving was there and how rude people are in general.
• It doesn't have to be rush hour for it to back up. We sat in bumper to bumper traffic on our way from the airport on a Saturday morning/afternoon.
  

2) The dreary days and damp cold air.

• We rarely saw the sun
• There is something about 100% humidity and 50 degrees that feels so much worse than -5 degree day here in Colorado.
  

3) The overall unfriendliness of the locals
I grew up in the Seattle area and noticed this when I lived there, but now coming from a different place it's even more evident. People just are not as happy in general. Must be the 9 months of clouds and gloom.

New Chubadevelopments:

• She loves sucking and chewing on her hands now. She never was really into it before but it must go "hand and hand" with teething (oh giggles, I'm so punny).
• Is doing so much better with Tummy time. It's almost like once she rolled over she started not to mind it as much. She'll lay there with her head lifted high for a long time (if she doesn't roll over first). It's a major break-through after months of agony for both of us.
• Is starting to make more high-pitched noises when she talks to herself.
  
• Definitely knows her Mommy and Daddy. Can't keep her eyes off of us even when someone else is holding her.
• Has really strong legs and can support her whole body easily, just doesn't have the balance to stay that way!
• Has FINALLY stopped spitting up constantly. Still has a few dribbles here and there but it's so much better than it used to be. I would ditch the bib, but now she's drooling constantly due to teething so we're swapping one thing for another. Go figure!

So that's the latest. I hear an unhappy baby on the monitor. Gotta go!

Pump and Circumstance

We officially graduated to flying status with The Chubs. She handled both trips like a pro. In fact she was amazing. She was a quiet observer for most of the time, taking brief intermissions to nap until the flight attendant blared her shreiky voice over the intercom. The things I feared the most turned out to be no cause for concern at all including getting her off her nap schedule for one day, taking a small baby on the plane and getting "the look" from other travellers as they carefully avoid the seat next to us, major blowouts at 32,000 feet and a fussy inconsolable baby. All of these were a non-issue.

What WAS an issue however was finding a place to pump. I say again, this world is not friendly to exclusive pumpers. Especially the Phoenix Airport. If you recall I had my car adapter with me so I could pump in the car. Great plan right? I agree. Except this doesn't account for a sleeping baby next to me who then needed to eat along the way, and me trying to cram In-n-Out into my mouth like nobody's business so I could get lunch before our flight, and arriving at the airport only 40 minutes before our flight because we mixed up the time.

I figured I would be able to find a family restroom quickly before the flight took off but we arrived right as they were beginning to board and I had things to do like get a cup of warm water to heat her next bottle, and rinse out the one we used on the way to the airport to feed her. Security was no picnic either. Using at least 10 tubs, and pulling out stored breastmilk and butt cream so they could "inspect" it with their fancy little swatches to make sure I didn't want to blow up the plane with my tiny 3 month old on it took a good solid 10 minutes of the 40 total we had since we had arrived. They also needed to "inspect" my pump. There is no shame in motherhood.

At the ticketing counter they also like to see a birth certificate of the lap child that's traveling with you to make sure they are under 2.


Maybe The Chubs looks wise beyond her years (either that or the hair threw them off) but she still wears newborn clothing. I guess they can't even profile babies anymore. She could be the world's tiniest toddler midget muffin, so I suppose they need to account for that to avoid a lawsuit.

So there I was boarding the plane, knowing that I needed to try to figure something out. I assumed there were no options on board so I would just have to wait until we got to DIA. Then after loading the majority of the plane, another attendant informed us over the loud speaker that something was broken on the aircraft and we would be delayed an hour. The Chubs miraculously slept through this announcement but I knew this was my opportunity to try to get somewhere to pump even though I hated the thought of waking her, knowing she would be missing two naps that day.

Feeling optimistic, I slowly passed off the Senorita to my husband (she didn't successfully make the transfer unfortunately (No, we didn't DROP her, I mean she woke up)), grabbed my pump and exited the aircraft. I was on a mission to find a family bathroom. First exit I forgot the plug in adapter (I only had the car one) so I had to go back on the plane again. Second, I forgot my "cover". Third time I came to find out they only have 1 family restroom in the entire airport and it was too far away for me to try to make it there and back in time. I talked to another female attendant about my situation and we finally concluded the only option was for me to use the public restroom because they have "outlets next to each sink". Oh what fun that would be. Occupying a sink in a fairly busy bathroom to pump in front of everyone was not my idea of a solution. I know if I was "really desperate" (which I was) I should've considered this option, but even though I mentioned there is no shame in motherhood, that was just a general statement that does not apply to electronically pumping your boobs in front of hundreds of strangers. Oh the looks! Oh the laughs! Oh the humility!

I entered the plane for the fourth and final time (they must have thought I was a terrorist lugging my "secretive" equipment off and on the plane over and over again) and resolved to attempt breastfeeding the Chub Muffin. This would kill two birds with one stone considering that her milk was still an uncomfortably cool temperature since we hadn't had time to refill the cup with warm water a second time and the water really doesn't get all that warm in those bathroom in the first place.

So you know how I said The Chubs didn't fuss at all? Well I lied. The only time she fussed was with my pathetic attempt to breast feed her. You would think I had chinese water tortured her (either that or made her watch a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie). I decided after about 45 seconds that this wasn't a good idea and wasn't working at ALL so that mission was aborted. In the end the repair only took about 35 minutes and we landed about the time I thought we were originally going to land and God bless DIA, they had a family bathroom waiting for us right in the terminal about 200 feet from our gate. It had an outlet, and a changing table so I was a happy girl and so was my daughter who had pooped twice on the flight.

Next time I will be much more prepared and bring a manual pump in case I'm in a pinch. They look weird and I don't really know how to use one but I'll figure it out before we travel next.

I have much more to tell about our trip but I figured I'd break it up into different posts so that not everyone has to read through the details about my boobs. I'm sensitive like that.