Month: January 2017

For anyone considering flying with a baby and a barely-two-year old, or one or the other, I’ve come up with some handy hints to help eliminate episodes of humiliation or desperation*.  Having travelled in consecutive weeks to France and back to see my family and then to Spain and back to visit DaddyM’s family, I feel something of a seasoned veteran in easyJet flying with tots. In no particular order, here are some of my top tips, complete with anecdotal insight:

*Please note there is no guarantee you will neither despair nor be humiliated…

1. Take a sticker book

   One of my best uni friends, B, gave MiniM#1 a dinosaur sticker book when she came down for MiniM#2’s baptism and this quite literally kept her occupied the entire outbound leg of the journey to France and most of the way back home again. Ok so Mummy and DaddyM had to assist with dinosaur-sticking (helping detach each individual sticker and then making sure they weren’t stuck in the sky/ upside down/ or in the wrong section of the book) but it was well worth the effort. A happy MiniM#1 = happy easyJet passengers + happy Mummy and DaddyM.

2. Explain the order of events carefully

   Similarly to older generations, very young children are not so good at expecting the unexpected. They like routine and knowing what is going to happen when. But this is where the similarities with elderly relatives end. We’ve learnt the hard way that if you combine an overexcited, overtired two year old with an unexpected event – like having to fasten your seat belt when the plane starts its descent – they may put on a rather spectacular display of resistance. Even if they’ve been immaculately behaved thus far with afore-mentioned sticker book.
   In our case MiniM#1 began screaming at the top of her lungs when we insisted she needed to strap in. Since she’d only turned two the week before, we asked the friendly air steward if she could be strapped to a parent like her younger sister. He dismissed this idea, calling in reinforcement in the form of another male member of the cabin crew.
   All the while I was discretely trying to breastfeed MiniM#2: bearing in mind it is tricky to discretely do anything when you have a two year old screaming at the top of her lungs right next to you. It kind of attracts attention.
   “I’m sorry but we will not be able to land the plane unless she is strapped in.” The friendly air steward was looking a little less friendly.
   By now there were three grown men – DaddyM and the two air stewards – trying to restrain MiniM#1. Every time she kicked or let out an anguished wail, MiniM#2 would come off my breast and whirl her head around in wide-eyed wonderment to see what was going on. As would the people in the row in front. And those in the rows in front of them…
   By this stage I was beyond feeling mortified. Instead, I began to find the whole thing hysterically funny. I just sat there laughing and trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to hide my face and breast from the astonished stares in our direction.
   The air stewards decided it would be a good idea to give MiniM#1 a chance to calm down or the plane would need to start circling. As she sat there, puce in the face and shuddering from all her screaming, DaddyM gently leant across and strapped her in. Just like that. She barely moved; exhausted from all her exertion.
   Before the return journey took place, we calmly explained the order of events that would take place right from handing in her luggage, with which she would be reunited upon arrival at Gatwick airport, through to folding up her tray table – and other such events – prior to landing. As such there was no more inconsolable anguish at seeing her beloved Bee Trunki disappear along the luggage belt at check-in, nor was there any more airborne resistance at inflight safety procedure. Everything went like clockwork once we’d told her what was going to happen. Give or take…

3. Give timely feeds

   You’ve probably heard that it’s advisable to feed babies (and give a drink to small children) when the plane is taking off and landing. Unlike adults, they are unable to make their ears pop by themselves when there is a change in cabin air pressure. The right time to feed a baby is meant to be when you can feel the pressure start to change in your own ears. However, I’ve now made a mental note to try to avoid pilot announcements during breastfeeds. Or rather wait until an announcement has just taken place before beginning a breastfeed, thus reducing the likelihood of one occurring mid-feed as happened when we were flying to Barcelona. Tucked away discretely (or so I thought) by a window on the left-hand side of the plane, MiniM#2 had just started to feed on my left breast when the pilot’s voice came over the tannoy; “We are now cruising at a height of 45,000 feet and are about to begin our descent towards Barcelona. If you look towards your left now you will see a stunning view of the French Pyrenees.”
   The noise of the tannoy prompted MiniM#2 to jerk her head clean off my breast just as the entire two rows to the right of me began craning their heads around to stare through the window that my now bare breast was silhouetted against. I didn’t know whether to be amused or horrified as I watched the expression on people’s faces change from curiosity to embarrassment.

4. Keep a close eye on your little darlings at all times

   This may sound too obvious for me even to mention. Of course you’ll keep a watchful eye on them. Who would be dumb enough to lose their own children? *clears throat awkwardly*. Well we managed to lose MiniM#1 going through security at Barcelona airport…
   At Gatwick security check we were spoilt. We each had an airport official helping us load our paraphernalia onto the conveyer belt. We managed to leave a large nappy bag and baby sling squashed under the buggy I was wheeling through the metal detector, but the kind official took apart the buggy to retrieve them and placed them on the conveyer belt, while I just stood there cuddling MiniM#2.
   In stark contrast we were left to fend for ourselves at Barcelona. I was told to dismantle the entire buggy and actually place it on the conveyer belt. This is easier said than done whilst carrying a weighty baby in a sling. DaddyM, who was up ahead with MiniM#1, had put the other suitcases onto the conveyer belt and was being told to empty the coins out of his pocket and place them in a tray. As the larger pieces of buggy were carried into the scanner they began to cause an almighty blockage. More people kept piling on trays so that when the blockage was eventually released, objects began to shoot out the other side at high velocity. The tray with DaddyM’s loose change was tipped up vertically and our last remaining euros were sent showering everywhere.
   DaddyM let out an uncharacteristically loud expletive and began scrambling around on his hands and knees to pick up the coins and other items that had fallen. I meanwhile, was trying to heave heavy luggage off the conveyer belt as delicately as possible given I was carrying a young baby in a sling.
   When I’d finished putting the buggy back together, DaddyM had got up from the floor and was picking up the last suitcase. And MiniM#1…. Was nowhere to be seen. “Where is she?” I said very loudly. “She’s gone!” even louder.  DaddyM looked as startled as I did and sprinted off towards the DutyFree shop.
   “La meva figlia! Mi hija!” I shouted, glued to the spot with powerless panic. “Don’t worry,” a Spanish official said, “she can’t have gone far.” Time seemed to stand still and I felt sick, staring around stupidly but not seeing her. Then a rush of relief as I heard the words “we’ve found her, Señora, here she is.” But I was being presented with the wrong child. A bemused dark-haired girl was shoved in my direction, her parents looking even more bewildered. “That’s not her! Where is she?!” I wailed. Then suddenly, as if from no where ,MiniM#1 appeared. There she was at my feet, looking a bit scared. I scooped her up and gave her the biggest ever hug. She clung on tightly too. She was probably only missing all of 60 seconds but it was the longest 60 seconds of my life.
   Now to find her missing daddy…

5. Exhaust them so they sleep

   On the return legs of each set of flights, both babies slept for a considerable chunk of the journey. It was bliss. DaddyM had a coffee and I had a tea and a kitkat and we flicked through the easyJet flight magazine. And looked at each other in jubilant disbelief.
   Staying away for a few nights and breaking from their usual routine naturally exhausts very young children. In an ideal world I’d recommend exhausting them before the outbound flight too, but in practice this is harder to achieve. Travelling in the afternoon definitely guarantees they are more tired, but there’s a fine line between slightly tiring them – enough to be fractious and disruptive – and totally knackering them enough to sleep.

6. Watch them as you pull along the Trunki

   Trunki suitcases are a great invention for not only keeping small children entertained at airports, but also for transporting the child – and the suitcase itself – as you pull it along. However, if, like us, you chose to ignore the product warning of not being suitable for children under 36 months, I would advise you to turn your head 180 degrees to watch the child in question being trundled along. Even if it means that you yourself walk smack into someone. And not to be simultaneously pushing your other baby in a buggy, given the impossibility of looking backwards and forwards at the same time.
   So it was that DaddyM was striding out of the luggage claim area with a trolley literally groaning with our luggage (baby paraphernalia combined with Christmas presents), while muggins here was pulling along MiniM#1 on her beloved Bee Trunki, whilst pushing MiniM#2 in front of me in the carrycot. The airport was heaving. I managed to negotiate the thongs of people and headed towards the exit doors. As I passed through them I heard a thunk and a wail. I turned around just in time to see MiniM#1 bounce off a metal pole and come tumbling off her Bee. I had pulled my poor daughter into a metal pole! Luckily we were traveling extremely slowly but I would strongly recommend exercising extreme caution when using a Trunki.

7. Travel at Christmas
   Not only are the cabin crew full of festive cheer, but we were regaled with easyJet orange Father Christmas hats (had to end of a positive note after Trunkigate… )

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Tinytoes and Microtoes slept really well last night, whereas I lay wide awake for much of it. When DaddyO travels I feel the need to be more alert and awake. Which is silly really because I’m usually the lighter sleeper anyway; my ears tuned in to detect the smallest wail or whimper.

I kept expecting Microtoes to wake for a feed, but the past two nights she has slept through – from 7pm to 6.30am. This is unchartered territory for me. I’m used to feeding her at 11pm and then again at 3.30am.  I started weaning her on Sunday but would be surprised if the miniscule amount of baby rice I manage to cram into her mouth mid-breastfeed on two lunchtimes could have had such a dramatic impact on her sleep.

Tinytoes also slept right through in her new, adult-sized single bed which arrived last week. The girls were undoubtedly tired out from the excitement of being stranded in a car yesterday…

It had all been going so well. Tinytoes was so pleased to see me when I came to collect her at nursery that she shouted ‘mummy!’ in delight and then put her coat and shoes on without any fuss, before reaching out for my hand and carefully walking down the stairs with me to the car. She then climbed into her car seat and patiently waited for me to strap her in while I strapped Microtoes into her car seat.

In my dazed state you would be forgiven for thinking that maybe I had picked up the wrong child, but no, it was definitely Tinyotes. The new, revolutionised nursey pick-up routine, which has immeasurably improved the quality of my daily life, is solely down to Tinytoes moving up a level last week. She is now slightly out of her depth, playing alongside 2-4 year olds rather than 0-1 year olds.

She’s gradually settling in, but still overjoyed to see me and come back home. No longer do I have to chase her around the nursery while carrying Microtoes, just to put her coat on. Or to patiently reason, cajole and then coerce her to come down the stairs. The whole process of simply exiting the nursery would sometimes take 45 minutes, but today it only took 8 minutes.

I was quietly congratulating myself on such a speedy turnaround as I pulled the car out onto the main road. Frowned as it felt slightly strange to drive –  I was in third gear but the car wasn’t accelerating properly, it was just rattling – then felt dismay wash over me as I realised something was seriously wrong with the car.

Back by the side of the road I quickly realised my front, offside tyre was completely flat. DaddyO was at the airport about the board a plane to Italy and suggested I tried to put the spare tyre on the car myself using the kit in the boot (!) Was this some kind of joke?  Yes I’d fitted a spare tyre on our hire car in Cuba in 2007, but we got rather a lot of practise at that because we got through three tyres on that trip, and that was 10 years ago; and it was a balmy 30 degrees rather than four degrees like today. Oh and I didn’t have two babies sitting in the back of the car.

Two babies looking up at me in surprised, yet unperturbed expectation, somehow taking it for granted that Mummy would know what to do.  I called Granny who was at a reunion 2 hours away. With only 30% battery left on my phone I called the RAC; thank goodness we renewed our membership.  By the time the woman on the other end of the phone had identified our whereabouts I only had 5% battery. “Someone will be with you at around 3pm,” she concluded. “That’s nearly 2 hours away! I have 2 infants in the back and it’s freezing cold,” I spluttered, at which point Tinytoes started a low wail of despair and I knew it wouldn’t be long until Microtoes joined in.

Luckily, things couldn’t have worked out better for us (except if I’d hadn’t broken down in the first place of course). I texted Granny to see if she had any local friends who could help, then made a last-ditched plea on social media. Granny texted back to say she had found an old lady V from her bridge club who would be coming to pick us up in a silver Honda.  My phone promptly died.

As we sat and waited for the Honda to arrive, Tinytoes had a whale of a time romping around inside the car and Microtoes fell fast asleep. Barely 10 minutes later we were all crammed into the back of the Honda; Tinytoes on my lap (I later discovered this was not illegal for short, emergency journeys, so I was not incriminating V) and Microtoes beside us in her detachable car seat. V turned out to be a lovely old lady, well into her late 80s, and I felt uncomfortable for dragging her out of her warm flat to chauffer her bridge friend’s daughter and grandchildren back home.

Not long after we got back – both girls were settled to sleep and I was preparing my lunch – than the phone rang and the guy from the RAC was already with the car, telling me there was a ‘pinhole’ in the side of the wheel.  “Hmm did someone do that deliberately?” I mused indignantly. “Either that or the wheel was scraped along the edge of the kerb,” he replied. I had a sudden flashback of nearly arriving late at nursery because Microtoes had needed a nappy change just as I was leaving the house. I drove there quickly and to ease parking I carelessly let the wheel ride up onto the kerb and drop back down onto the road.  “Oops, that would have been me then…”

The man from the RAC went above and beyond the call of duty; driving all the way to my home to pick up my keys. He then drove back to the abandoned car, retrieved the spare tyre from the boot and fitted it, before driving back to return my keys to me. After I’d thanked him profusely, it transpired it had been a nightmare for him because it had been school home time and I’d left the car outside a school. The whole road was blocked with a long queue of buses, struggling to get past my car, which I’d left slightly sticking out in my haste to turn off the engine.

Later than evening, Granny drove me and the girls back up to reclaim the car and then we drove back home in separate cars. I was sheepish I put so many people out – the old lady, the RAC man, my mother – all because I’d parked carelessly. I, on the other hand, got off rather lightly, all things considered. And the girls were none the wiser; just another day full of curious events.

It’s been a long time since my last blog post. There have been so many things I’ve wanted to write about, but simply not been able to come up for air. Like Microtoes being baptised (when Tinytoes gazed intently at the vicar before dipping her chubby hand into the font and splashing water onto her own forehead…)  Or when Tinytoes turned two and was given a tour of a fire station (by a rather astonished fireman who had clearly never given a tour to someone so young).

I’ve been too busy to write, because I’ve been juggling. Not literally juggling (that would be a bit weird..). I’ve been trying to do other things besides being a mother of two tiny people. It’s not that I’ve been oblivious to how full-on it is with the relentless breastfeeding, nappy changing, playing, singing, clothes washing, cooking, cleaning and tidying.  Far from it. Half of me just wants to be ‘lazy’ and stay at home doing all of the above.

But the other half of me realises that if I’m able to do ‘non-mummy’ activities, such as going for a run, seeing friends or continuing to run my own marketing business then, although its uses up more energy, it lifts my spirits and gives me a different purpose. I return from a run feeling revived, refreshed and with renewed stamina to face the wrath of a grumpy two-year old or the cries of an overtired baby that won’t settle. And winning over a new client gives me a new purpose: the buzz of satisfaction inherent in growing a business (as well as two small children…) And seeing friends is just, well, nice.

To stay motivated I set myself a challenge of running 2km when Microtoes was 2 months old, 3km when she was 3 months old and so on and so forth. That way I wouldn’t be running a marathon until she was precisely 3 years and 6 months old.  It was all going beautifully to plan; by the time Microtoes turned 4 months I was running 4 km two or three times a week. Either at the weekend, or my mother would come by midweek and watch Microtoes for 20 minutes or so.   Work I squeezed in as and I when I could; which was becoming increasingly tricky as Microtoes began to nap less in the daytime.

Things came to a head just before Christmastime. We had two trips planned (since before I was even pregnant) – one to France to stay with my family and one to Spain to stay with DaddyO’s family – and both within the space of two weeks. I had been apprehensive prior to leaving. Holidays with extended family aren’t terribly relaxing at the best of times and travelling with two small children, one of which developed bronchiolitis the eve of going to France, meant I was even more on edge about being out of my comfort zone.

I won’t go through all the ins and outs of the trips – maybe save some of the more humorous travelling highlights for another blog post.  The day we were due to France, however, I was trundling my suitcase along at Gatwick airport and I felt my left knee give way.  I don’t know if it was because I had been running that morning or just one of those things that happen now I’m the ripe old age of 38. When I got back from France the osteopath told me I’d damaged my meniscus cartilage. No running for 6 weeks.

Once I’d got over the shock of not being allowed to run, I actually felt a sense of relief. I had clearly been doing too much in a bid to remind myself of some of the (tamer) thrills from my previous life. Of course I’ve missed the endorphins, but after my body stopped running I began to realise how desperately tired and tense I was. Running was just my way of ploughing on through.

When I returned from Spain I saw a cranial osteopath, J, who noticed my body was so tense and stiff that she hardly touched my knee, but focused on the rest of my body instead. I have another appointment on Wednesday for the knee. J worked wonders on me. There’s a great deal to be said for talking to a compassionate professional about what you are unable to admit friends, family or even yourself.  I was clearly doing too much and my body was testimony to this.

I spend the next two days in a state of relaxed lethargy, sleeping a lot more than usual and feeling strangely light and almost heady. Then on Saturday I suffered one of my aura migraines, where my vision goes like shattered glass. Thank goodness it was a weekend and I was with DaddyO and not alone with the children. He drove us back home from town and I retreated to bed. Never have I experienced such nausea and pain with the headache: one of the worst I’ve ever had. These headaches tend to occur when I start to relax after periods of extreme stress, so I guess this was some pretty hard-core relaxing I had underway.

My next appointment with J to focus on my knee is on Wednesday but my knee already feels better. Finally I’m able to crawl into Tinytoes’ castle wendy house she got for Christmas when she shouts ‘Mummy in!’. It’s still quite an operation if I’m carrying Microtoes too, but it makes me feel less of a spoilsport (and more on a par with DaddyO who seems to meet her demands more easily).

Body and mind are so closely entwined. I’ve realised that if I try to fit too much in and my mind can’t cope with doing everything then my body packs in too. And I’m no good to anyone. Least of all my beautiful daughters. So I’m embracing the fact I cannot run at the moment and am working as and when I can. Finally I took J’s advice and bit the bullet and directly asked my dear mother if she could watch Microtoes a morning a week for 2 hours while Tinytoes is in nursery.  And she agreed. So now I have 2 hours a week where I can properly work, write my blog post, tidy the house.. or simply just have a long hot bath and reflect on how lucky I am!