This Space

I have been toying with the idea of changing things up here in my little slice of the internet. Many years ago I was a very dedicated blogger - updating pretty much every day. I had a lot of regular, very supportive, readers and it was lot of fun for me to be able to stretch my creative juices in a new and exciting way.

But blogging has changed a lot since I started my "online journal" almost 12 years ago. I often wonder how people have the time to blog with such focus, detail and passion.

So, I may play around in the next few weeks with the look, the subject focus and see if I can't get a little more inspired again.

Watch this space ;)

The adventures of nursing a toddler

The theme for October's Love Makes a Family blog carnival is "Secrets." Specifically, "not the painful bad kind' but rather, "your deep dark parenting secret, the one you don’t really mention in public." And yes, I realize I'm a month late but hey, at least I wrote something, right?!

To be honest, I really couldn't think of one. I'm pretty open and honest about the way I parent. I'm not perfect but I do work very hard at upholding my core values and parenting philosophies at all times...at home and in public.

So, I thought a little harder and a little longer about what to write. And I realized that I haven't given an update on how nursing is going for Baby and I. And I know you've all been waiting with bated breath!

My secret isn't that I still nurse my almost 23 month old. I'm completely open about that and I'm very pleased (and grateful) that Baby has been able to reap the benefits of "milkies" for so long. The secret is that recently I'm really not enjoying it very much at times. Sometimes it's downright painful. I often find myself feeling resentful when Baby nurses and then I feel guilty. Most of the time I gently stop her and try and distract her or calm her to sleep. To clarify, she only nurses 2-3 times a day now and has been night weaned for about 5 months (have I mentioned she sleeps through the night quite regularly now?!). I think my supply has dipped a lot and with my cycles back in full force the "milkies" are just really sensitive and sore at certain times in my cycle. Sometimes "sensitive" and "sore" really mean "holycrapthathurtsandIcan'tstanditforlongerthan2minutes."

I have no plans to wean her at this point. I'm guessing she'll wean herself before long as she already goes 24 hours sometimes without nursing. I don't go out of my way to offer except when she has hurt herself or is really tired. And she rarely asks anymore. When we started out on our nursing journey my goal was one year at least. After we hit one year I didn't really think about a new goal. We just kept going.

I don't know how much longer I'll be ok with nursing. For now, I'm still fine with it and encourage it (I still love the bonding time and the milkie smiles, giggles and cuddles - even with all the painful times).

But I have to admit that I'm hoping she'll wean herself in the new year.

There, I said it out loud.

Travel Lessons Learned

Phew. We're back home! Just over 48 hours later than we had originally planned but we made it. A quick snow storm on the east coast took us somewhat by surprise (we were expecting it to happen after we had left) and left us stranded at LaGuardia airport in NYC for 11 hours and then back into the city for another 2 nights before we got booked on another flight. It was crazy but surprisingly, it wasn't the most challenging nor the most exciting part of our journey.

At work today I was working on preparing for facilitating a project close out meeting and was looking at the different headings we use:

• What went well?
• What didn't work?
• What what would you do differently next time?

Keeping in line with fastidious project management practices, I'll recap my travel "Lessons Learned" for you all.

Baby's first stoop in NYC

What went well?

1. Lots of things! The flights down were calm and relaxing and uneventful. We left on time and arrived on time. We made sure we had eaten before we got on the plane and timed the second flight to take off about an hour after Baby's normal nap time - so she slept on the plane.
2.  We made sure we had a fridge in every room we stayed at. We were able to request one and it was helpful to have lots of snacks available for Baby.
3. Stay where there is a pool! A swim at the end of a hectic day exploring was a nice "away from home" routine.
4. Having a rental car with Baby's car seat installed was a nice luxury after catching buses for 5 days.
5. We brought our own car seat and gate checked it with our umbrella stroller. No extra charge and it minimizes the possibility of it being damaged as checked luggage. 
6. Going with the flow in terms of nap time and the effect of the time change. We followed Baby's cues and even though it was a rough few days she was napping fairly well after that. She started napping in the stroller most days while we were out and about. We didn't force naps and didn't cancel our plans if she didn't nap. We just went on with our day.

What didn't work?

1. Baby became OBSESSED with the iPad. She asked for it every day. It was crazy. She had only played with it a couple of times before we left but by the end of our trip she could turn it on, navigate to the apps she liked and was doing puzzles, matching identical items and feeding her horse...all on her own. I guess I could argue that this was actually a "what went well" thing because it did keep her occupied when we really needed a distraction but neither S nor I liked the experience. She hasn't seen the iPad or asked for it since we've gotten home. I deleted all but 3 apps.
2. Baby didn't eat much while we were away. We resorted to giving her cheese strings a few times a day and french fries a lot just to make sure she was eating something.
3. I wouldn't take a toddler back to a big city like NYC. While we had some great fun there it really wasn't the experience we wanted. I guess I picture NYC as a city where you explore for hours, you go to museums and galleries and shopping. You dine out and drink wine. We weren't really able to do any of that with Baby so it left us frustrated and mildly annoyed. We bickered a lot.
4. Night time flights aren't a good idea - Baby cried a LOT on the way home because she was over tired, couldn't nap because we were traveling to the airport or waiting for our flight during nap time.
5. We weren't prepared for the rain or cold weather. Luckily this was only a problem for 2 days but still....next time I'd like to be more prepared.

Relaxing @ The Belvedere in NYC

What what would you do differently next time?

1. I would plan flights for a bit earlier in the day just in case we were delayed.
2. I would pack for rain and cold when traveling in the Fall or Winter. Baby got really wet and cold one day and it was entirely my fault for not packing her rain pants, boots and warmer clothes. She had a rain jacket but it was mostly useless when the rest of her was soaked.
3. I would book where we are staying every night before we left. In the past, when we are on road trips we just wing it and stay wherever we want at the last minute. This was a big mistake with Baby as we were often driving around in the dark looking for somewhere to stay in places we'd never been to before.
4. And finally, I wouldn't choose to go to a big city at all with Baby again any time soon. We were tossing around the idea of going to Western Europe in the next couple of years but I think we'll wait. For at least 3 or 4 years....maybe longer if we add another child into the mix.

I'd say our first big vacation with Baby was a success even with the "what didn't work" stuff. And now that we are pros at it....we're all ready for Vegas in March (oops, another work conference).

First Flight

In 3 sleeps we're leaving for a 2 week trip. It will be our first "big" trip as a family of 3. We're flying to Philadelphia for a conference I'm attending for work. We'll stay in Philly for 5 nights, then 4 nights on the road....somewhere....and we'll round out our trip with 3 nights in NYC before flying home from there.

Although I know this trip will be quite different from other trips S and I have taken in the past 6 years, I'm still really looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to the conference of course but also to exploring new places with Baby. I love to travel and wish I could afford to do it more often. I can't complain though as we have been very fortunate to have lots of great trips over the years.

Here are some of our travel planning items/ideas....feel free to let me know if you have more tips or tricks!

• Pack enough clothes for Baby to last 2 weeks. I don't know that we'll have access to laundry so I don't want to be short. I guess we could always do some hand washing and hanging to dry if need be.
• We've decided to do sposies for this trip. As I said above, we likely won't have access to laundry and won't have the time to find a laundry mat and sit there for a couple of hours every 2 days. I don't feel great about this decision but it's what we're doing so we'll see how it goes.
• We don't have cable TV and Baby doesn't really have any screen time at all (no laptop, iphone or dvds). I won't say she's never watched anything because we were given a few DVDs as gifts (Baby Bach and a couple of Elmo DVDs) and Baby has watched them and really enjoyed them. It's just more of a "once every 2 or 3 months" she watches one of them or a playlist on youtube with music/Elmo songs. Anyway, all that preamble is because I recently bought an ipad and have put some tv and a Peanuts movie on it for Baby to watch on the flights. After being asked what apps I had for her too (and shamefully hiding the fact that I had none...nor did I know of any) I have downloaded 3 toddler apps as well. I'm hoping between being mesmerized by the ipad, napping and playing with the super cool sticker book that S got for her that Baby will be fairly content on the flights. We didn't purchase an extra seat...she'll be on my lap most of the time I would imagine. Maybe we're crazy, maybe not...time will tell.
• We are bringing our own car seat. Even though taxis are not required to have infants or toddlers in car seats I'm just not comfortable with having her in a car without being in one. It just seems wrong to me and I don't understand the law at all. I'm also planning on insisting on gate checking the car seat along with a small umbrella stroller that we are bringing with us. Hopefully that will minimize the risk of the car seat being damaged. The car seat transport is the most stressful part of my planning so far.
• We're hoping to try and avoid over stimulation. Baby is pretty laid back and not prone to this but I know when S and I travel we tend to really pack things in. We've both agreed that we can't do this with Baby because rushing things and being overwhelmed makes all 3 of us cranky.
• Finally, I have NO idea how to deal with the 3 hour time difference. Will it even be an issue? Suggestions?

I likely won't be updating while we're away but stay tuned for photos and updates in early November!