mommapalooza

fear of flying

Last night, Chris mentioned that he was hoping to make a business trip back to Calgary at the end of June, and I immediately was excited! I figured that Madeline and I could tag along for the first leg of the flight, to Toronto, and then say goodbye to Chris as he hops on a connecting flight to Calgary and we'd catch a connecting flight to Edmonton to visit Madeline's grandparents and aunties. This way, both Chris and I would be able to entertain Madeline on the airplane for the first leg, and I'd only have to wrangle her solo for the second five-hour segment. Except Chris was quick to tell me that he would be flying Business Class with his co-op student, not sitting with the rest of us in Economy. So, no fatherly assistance. Boo. I would love a quick trip to Alberta, so I'm kind of bummed out.

I know that I theoretically could fly home any time I wanted, but I'm intimidated by the prospect of taking my wonderful-yet-highly-energetic toddler on an airplane for ten hours without back-up. The battery life on our portable DVD player is only three hours, so it doesn't count.  Madeline totally passed on looking at her usually-beloved books on our last flight. Even if I packed her playdough, crayons, and finger-paints in her carry-on bag, I don't see those providing more than one hour of collective amusement. So, what do I do with the other six hours?

Interestingly, Air Canada charges passengers who want to sit next to each other an extra $15 per ticket. I suppose that I could just not pay the $30, sit a few rows back from Madeline, and watch the in-flight movie :)

Update: Last night at dinner, Chris said that he'd be happy to give me a hand and sit with Madeline and I for the part of the flight that we'd share, so she and I do get a visit with our families! Whee!

little girl, big changes

Madeline is 32 inches tall, and weighs about 22 lbs. That's why I find it ironic that we're taking at least four times her weight in clothing, gear, and toys with us to St. John's with us :)  Poor girl. She'll have to aspire to being a light traveller when she's older, but I guess it's impossible when one is still in diapers and has clothes hanging in one's closet to "grow-into".  I think that the move will be much harder on her than on Chris or I. She'll probably be fascinated with our new home initially, but then she'll start to wonder when we're going back home. Home to her room, the fun kitchen cupboards with pots and bowls, the treadmill in the basement that she likes tossing balls onto.  Chris really surprised me and suggested that we take a few of the decorations from her bedroom so that she isn't as homesick. He suggested the Care Bear wall-hanging that Auntie Julie sewed, and I grabbed her bug-themed clothes hamper, as it packs completely flat.  Hopefully we'll settle into a routine by next week.

Will she remember our house when we get back?

We're flying out tomorrow night - everyone send Madeline sleep-inducing vibes, okay?

backwards and forwards

A current post about carseat safety on a forum that I lurk at really caught my attention. The poster has a friend who spent the megabucks on a Britax Marathon (approved for rear-facing to 33lbs and forward-facing to 48lbs in Canada, 65lbs in the USA), yet turned her son forward-facing at the age of one year because he weighed over 20 lbs. The poster was dumbfounded and implied that her friend was wrong to do this, and just might as well have bought a cheap carseat.  She kind of implied that all good parents ought to know that it's safer to keep your infants and toddlers rear-facing in the car as long as their seat permits. The great majority of the other folks on this forum were quick to point out that the poster's friend was doing nothing wrong or illegal by turning her son's seat forward-facing. It might not be the most informed decision, but not every parent keeps up with the latest research on carseat safety (arguably not an easy thing), and she was using the seat within the manufacturers specifications.

This discussion interested me in two ways. First, it renewed my annoyance that children in Canada are supposed to be transferred from their nice secure carseats into booster seats (which are a step down safety-wise, from carseats) when they reach 40 lbs. This government requirement doesn't take into account the age of the would-be booster seat occupant. A child who is 5 and 40 lbs probably can appreciate the danger of car travel and sit still while traveling in a booster, but I can't help but imagine if Madeline was on a high percentile for weight and would reach 40lbs around the age of 2.5 or so. Do I think that I could have confidence that she would use a booster seat safely? I don't think so, and I don't mean that to short-change my daughter, either. It's not her nature to sit still, that's all, and despite her best intentions, I think she'd find it fun to wiggle out of the shoulder-strap or undo the seatbelt altogether after a period of sitting still. I dunno. To me, emotional maturity ought to weigh in the decision to switch from a carseat to a booster. I brought up this personal peeve with a couple of my friends yesterday and I think I baffled them. Maybe I'm just thinking too much!

Continuing, the second reason the online discussion intrigued me is because Madeline currently is a forward-facing carseat occupant, but we'll be getting a new vehicle to use in St. John's, and it's a good opportunity to try putting her rear-facing again. I know that Chris already thinks I'm slightly nuts for my intention to install her carseat rear-facing on the airplane, so I'm sure he'll think I'm certifiably batty. It's about something that could save Madeline's life one day, though. That's worth taking a little teasing and taking time to explain ...

seven minutes

Seven minutes. That's how long Madeline will sit contentedly on a lap on an airplane. Last week Madeline and I flew home from Edmonton. The flight is only about 30 minutes long, so Chris and I thought that keeping her on my lap was work trying. It wasn't so bad, but I am happy that Westjet assigned me a window seat as Madeline was unable to wrestle out of my arms and take off down the aisle. Aside from her insatiable urge to explore, Madeline is still a good little flyer. She liked looking through the safety information card tucked into the seat pocket and turning the latch locking the refreshment tray was amusing for awhile :)

I was really happy with the care Westjet and the baggage handlers at the Edmonton International Airport took with Madeline's carseat. It was the last item loaded onto the plane (I was watching from my seat onboard), and it was carried from the baggage trolley by hand and placed into the cargo hold. Next time we fly, I think it makes sense to buy Madeline her own seat and use her carseat on board. It's saferfor her anyway, and I can't think of any other way to keep her from running amok on the plane without struggling with my active toddler. I was really happy to find this thread on the Baby Bargains board with pics and illustrations on how to best install a Marathon onboard an airplane last night - I've bookmarked it for the future!

Future Engineer

I am beginning to think that turning Madeline's carseat forward-facing was a bad idea. She's taken to fussing and whining and reaching while she's in it, even for quick trips to the grocery store! From her position in the centre of the backseat, she has a perfect view of the climate control buttons on the dashboard, and I think she's really frustrated that she's strapped into the back instead of being able to leap into the front to play with them!

Well Traveled Reader

Shortly before taking off for our crazy Australian holiday when a then-four-month old, I had the idea that a few picture books would be the best type of souvenir to buy Madeline.  Even though she won't remember ever being to Australia, she'd have these stories to read at bedtime that mom and dad thought she'd like.  Chris and I had a lot of fun in the bookstores, and ended up bring home:

• Possum Magic by Mem Fox
• Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French
• Kangaroo Played his Digeridoo by Nigel Gray

Thank you to Claire of Loobylu for recommending Possum Magic and the website for the Children's Book Council of Australia.

... like the Romans ...

I noticed over the weekend that a charge has appeared on our credit card from Hire for Babe - that's the company that we rented Madeline's baby gear from while we were holidaying in Australia.  Renting her a stroller, carseat, and Pack n' Play-type cot to sleep in was definitely something that I have no regrets about - would have been a hassle to travel with all of that! 

I have to laugh because when we first saw what her infant seat (better known as a "baby capsule" to the locals) looked like, I figured that the company was trying to pass off some safety restraint from the 1970's on us dumb tourists - it looks so different than Madeline's SnugRide infant seat!  I felt rather silly when I learned that her Safe n' Sound baby capsule was made by Britax.   The rear-facing tether should have clued me in ...

Nappyland

Despite that subject heading, this isn't a post about Madeline's napping habits (or lack thereof - hee hee!).  We only packed enough disposable diapers/nappies for Madeline to hold her for the plane trip and our first day in Melbourne, so one of the first things that we had to do when we arrived was buy more nappies.  Now, Canada has adopted the metric system, but there are enough older folks around who pre-date the conversion that us younger generations still have to be fluent in the old imperial measures.  Thus, I knew that Madeline weighed about fifteen pounds.  So there was jet-lagged me standing in the aisle full of colourful packages of nappies at a 24-hour grocery store, trying to figure out how much Madeline weighed in kilograms because that's all that the Australian packages had on their labels!!!  Fun stuff, doing math on minute amount of sleep!

Interestingly, I had a choice between Huggies for girls and Huggies for boys - we don't have that variety here ...

Flying like the birdies ...

First off, I have to say that Madeline was a much better flyer than I honestly expected.  She even was pretty patient waiting in line at various airports to go through security, and clear customs.  We kept her in the Baby Bjorn for most of the airport journeys.  The first exception was when she and I were actually walking through security - I would whip off the Bjorn and carry her through.  Happy to report that neither the snaps on her clothing nor the ones on my nursing bra set off the alarms!  As a side note, the metal rods in the Baby Bjorn were an item of interest when viewed on the x-ray machines, but never caused a hassle.  The second exception was waiting to get our boarding passes from Virgin Blue for our flight to Sydney - she slept through that in the prammette we rented from Hire for Babe.

We flew first to Los Angeles on Air Canada, and their sole advice about flying with the little person was to hold her in the "burping position" (ie. over the shoulder) if there was a mid-air emergency.  On Qantas (and on Virgin Blue), Madeline was provided with a little seatbelt of her own that attached to the grow-up belts that Chris and I were using.  They were kind of nifty, though I am skeptical that they'd really do more for safety than keep her grounded in the event of severe turbulence.

On our 15 hour+ flight to Melbourne on Qantas, we were fortunate enough to be seated in one of the bulkhead rows, with a bassinette that popped out of the bulkhead to tuck Madeline into for naps.  It was so worth it to have her out of our arms, even if was only for two-hour intervals.  Both Chris and I figure that if we fly again after she's too heavy for the bassinette, we're buying her a seat of her own, even if she's still young enough to travel on our laps.

Madeline obediently nursed during take-off and landing, but I think that her ears really only bothered her during the descent at landing.  She slept intermittantly through all flights, and managed to have only one meltdown or two over the six plane trips we took.  All comments from other passengers were about how well they thought she'd flown, though we did get some nasty looks from one gentlemen on the Air Canada flight we took from Calgary to Los Angeles.

I discovered that one of the most important things to find out upon boarding an aircraft was which of the teeny airplane washrooms had the baby-changing table in it!  I think that we had three stinky diapers to contend with on the plane, but there actually was enough room to change diapers comfortably on the plane.  It was just tricky to navigate the aisles with a baby in one arm and a diaper bag in the other.