Here we go again...

The long-dreaded day is here and we are officially off to Brazil in about 5 hours.  I know I should be working, or packing, or doing anything other than blogging but I won't have Internet access while we're gone and frankly I'm still trying to get my heart rate down to normal after the past few hours I just spent at Audrey's school. 

Today was Teacher Appreciation Day so that meant the teachers went to a catered lunch by themselves while moms fill in in the classroom.  I really did not need to add this to my "to-do" list for the day, but of course out of the entire class no one else agreed to do it.  I was *supposed* to have the help of one other person but she canceled on me this morning so that's when the panic really set in.  It was me versus an entire classroom of 2-3 year olds.  Everyone's dream, right?  Things started off calmly enough on the playground, but soon spiraled into this scene:

- Audrey clinging to my leg and screaming if I so much as talked to another child
- One boy peeing his pants
- One boy throwing sand in another's face; sand recipient screaming
- One boy and one girl fighting over one of those Little Tikes cars with me refereeing while Audrey still clings to my leg.
- Me smiling and waving to the other moms in the neighboring playground, prentending that EVERYTHING IS FINE!  I'VE GOT IT UNDER CONTROL!

Ha ha.

Next was hand-washing, which we sort of half-assed.  Then I forgot to lead them in prayer before lunch.  Oops.  Finally we sat down for lunch and that's when the sh*t really hit the fan.  The boy sitting closest to me was eating salami for lunch (yes, really) and promptly smeared me and the table with grease.  Another boy told me his mom was picking him up early and ran and hid in the school office, causing 2 other kids to follow him.  A 3rd kept asking me where the teachers were, to which I told him to pray for their speedy return.  It was about this time that a school employee started giving me the evil eye and saying things like, "what exactly is going on here?" to which I really wanted to let her have it but instead told her to watch the remaining kids while I went to the office to the retrieve the missing 3. 

Needless to say I might have shed a tear or two of joy when the teachers finally walked through the door.  I'm sure they were less than thrilled with my performance but honestly, the fact that all the kids were still in the building with all of their limbs in tact was success enough for me.  And now I get to reward myself with 12 hours of international travel.  Santa really has been reading my wish list this year!

Florida

I know my two loyal blog readers have been wondering where I am lately, but fret not you two, I'm back!  We took a little mini-vacation to Ft. Lauderdale with some friends and it's taken me a few days to get back into my normal routine.  Even though we were only gone for 4 days, traveling in general - especially with a toddler - really throws me off.  Coming home to mountains of laundry, no food in the fridge, and a filthy house doesn't help. 

Anyway, the weather gods did not bless us on this trip but we still had a great time.  We landed to pouring rain and promptly headed straight for the pool bar to congratulate ourselves on surviving:

- 1 take-off temper tantrum
- 2 in-flight poops of epic proportions
- the general attitude problem of every American Airlines employee I have ever encountered in my entire life
- and that Haitian dude at the airport who tried to snatch our luggage and scam us into taking his fake cab God knows where

Audrey had a little friend on this trip and can I just tell you how cute 2-year olds can be?  My ovaries were exploding the entire trip, I swear.  They were like an old married couple that just happens to be 2 feet tall and run everywhere rather than walk.  For starters, they hold hands constantly (OMG, loves it).  If one sneezes the other one says, "bless you!" and then the sneezer replies, "thank you!"  And then one punches the other in the face.  But still, super cute until the punch, right?  Here they are looking at the airplanes:

On this trip I also discovered that sleeping in a king-size bed every night literally might change my life.  The improvement in my sleep was so shockingly apparent that I've told the hubs we will have to sacrifice Audrey's college education if need be to save up and buy a king-size bed.  Bed-hogger that he is, the hubs thinks I'm being dramatic and ridiculous, but he's not the one waking up 56 times a night so I am going to make this happen one way or another.

I'll close with my awesome parenting beach tip from this trip.  If you keep losing track of your kid on the beach because you're too busy gawking at the guy running by in a banana sling/g-string/whatever the heck it's called (true story) just bury him/her in the sand and viola, problem solved.  You're welcome.

List Time! Plane traveling with toddlers

Before I had T, I very clearly pictured myself jet-setting everywhere with T in tow. Chris and I took a fair amount of trips pre-child – and I went up to NY and DC a couple of times a year to see friends. So, I envisioned just sticking T on a plane and taking him with me. Yea, so that didn’t turn out to be reality.

The dust has settled since T’s first plane ride (at 18 ½ months) and I’m starting to mentally recover from it enough to not get a pit in my stomach when thinking about it. And I’m not gonna lie, no matter how many flights I took pre-kiddo, I was kind of freaking out about getting him on the plane. I know, it was a 3 hour flight – nothing like Erika’s trip ‘round-the-globe. But I still did what I always do when I’m at a loss with the kiddo – I asked my friends for advice.

So, as your favorite crazy list lady, here’s my list of things that were helpful to do when traveling with a lap toddler on a plane.

1. Ditch the diaper bag – My diaper bag is super cute and super fashionable and fits right in when I am strolling T around Nordstrom. However, it doesn’t zip shut and T likes to pull random things out of it – so it’s not ideal for the conveyor belt in the security line, where I am positive, everything would have dumped out all over the place. As much as it pained me, I took the advice of a friend and swapped cuteness for practicality – a backpack. I still cringe thinking about my accessory ugliness, but it worked.
2. Umbrella stroller – We brought one. We learned the hard way that we should strap T into it as soon as we left the car. Not doing so made for a disastrous airport experience on the way out. Luckily, we learned our lesson and had a much saner time at the airport on the way home by trapping T in the stroller the second he left the car seat.
3. In the airport – Everyone suggested we let T run around as much as possible at the gate before we boarded the plane to run down some of his energy. Maybe it was his age or his energy level or his early Olympic distance training – but this advice didn’t work for us. (If you want to cringe, read why here). Instead, leaving him in his stroller and continuously feeding him banana cookies and milk worked better for us.
4. Books – We brought lots and lots of books with us for the plane. Despite the new ones I packed, he preferred his old standbys – mainly, Elmo & Trucks. We read lots and lots.
5. Mini trucks/cars – T likes to “vroom vroom” and these don’t make any additional noise to bug the people around us. His dad taught him how to have Hotwheels collisions. Lovely.
6. Ipad/Laptop – With episodes of his favorite shows. We packed Blues’ Clues, Sesame Street and Yo Gabba Gabba. Also bought him these Elmo headphones – which we practiced him wearing around the house with the iPad before we left. It took a couple tries, but he got the hang of it. (Well, sort of. He didn’t really like wearing the headphones, but he thought it was pretty funny when I wore them.) We made sure NOT to show him any of these things until after takeoff, because well, try explaining to him that he has to practice his patience by waiting until we count to ten 500 times until he can use it. Riiight.
7. Snacks and Sippys – Since I wasn’t sure which would be better for his ears, we ended up packing two sippy cups – one with a straw and one with a spout. So, we used them both -  one for milk and one for water. And we refilled both of them as many times as he wanted. As you know, I may have ended up dehydrated, T certainly didn’t! And even more of a plus – his ears didn’t seem to bug him one bit.
8. Drinks! – We went into this trip agreeing to borrow Tina Fey’s philosophy – If all else failed and T was a traveling terror, we would try to keep people from hating us by buying them a round of drinks. I know it might seem excessive because well, you can’t really reason with a toddler in a meltdown, but it was my way of mentally preparing for the worst-case scenario of a plane trip. Really, who could hate our child when we are buying them alcohol? Luckily, T pulled it together when we were actually on the plane because this far-off philosophy seemed very much like it was going to be a reality when we were in the airport.
9. Baggage – We checked our bags. I hate to check bags. I hate to wait at baggage claim. But, we knew we had our hands full, so we sucked it up and dealt with it. I’m glad we did.
10. Extra legroom - We debated about upgrading our seats and found it totally worth it in the end. On the way there, our extra legroom tickets also gave us one of the only extra free seats on the flight. On the way home, the extra legroom gave T just a bit more space on a totally full flight to play on the floor. In the end, I really think that extra 4 inches allowed us to hold onto our sanity. If we didn't pay for the upgrade, we probably would have paid to keep our sanity in the form of drinks. 

This is obviously not an exhaustive list. And as you know, we have a lot to learn. I'd love to hear whatever advice any of you with toddlers have for the next time we take on this adventure!

To Florida and back

There’s nothing I look forward to more than summer vacation. Long weekends, aside, it’s really the only time all year long when I get to hang out with my hubs without any other social obligations nipping at our toes. And since T has been in the picture, it seems like the one time of year when we really get quality time together as a family. 

So this year, we went to my parents’ condo in Florida for a week. Their condo is in St. Augustine, so we decided to fly direct to Orlando rather than Jacksonville and have a bit of a longer drive once we landed. 

Anyone that knows me knows that I’ve been in a slightly panicked state planning for the air portion of the trip. T won’t stay still for a second, so I was pretty positive that we were going to be the subject of the evening news -- “Family kicked off flight due to unruly toddler.” (I’ve become much more sympathetic to these stories since giving birth.) 

Amazingly, the flight was fine. It was the airport that was hell on earth. Not over-exaggerating.  From the second we got onto the shuttle bus taking us to the terminal, Tyler was hysterical. And it didn’t let up. There is no doubt in my mind that every single person in the security line was praying that we weren’t on their flight. We were THAT family. And everyone stared. Big time. Multiple friends advised us to let T run around the gate as much as possible before boarding the flight so that he could blow off some steam and be tired by the flight. Well, that would have been fine, if he had any interest in staying near a single gate. Not my child. He wanted to run the entire length of the terminal. So while the hubs was off getting the (also recommended) disastrous (berry red) smoothie for the flight - I had long abandoned my purse and backpack at the gate and was running marathons in the terminal chasing after T and carrying back 30 pounds of a kicking screaming mess when he didn’t want to go to the gate to board. Erika and I commiserated on this -- why aren’t there indoor play areas for kids at airports? Really, a little 10x10 foot walled-in area with toys would save more than just parents a piece of their sanity. I apologize for anyone in either airport who we stripped of theirs.  

Hours of torture, yes, but we made it.  My parents were nice enough to overlap with us in Florida on the front and back end of our trip to give the hubs and I some much-needed date-time. (And maybe, just possibly, love on their grandkid a bit). Date night #1 was planned to include a nice dinner, a couple quick errands, and a mini-golfing outing. Very dateish, no? We made it through dinner and that’s about it. Instead, it ended early when I had a bit of a health snafu. Because I figured (correctly) that I wouldn’t have much opportunity for bathroom breaks while en route, I didn’t drink anything on Saturday. Sunday, we spent the day at the beach, where running after a toddler as he sprints for the ocean doesn’t give a person much time to hydrate either. Fast forward to Sunday evening, post-dinner, where the hubs and I head into Wal-Mart (quite possibly my least favorite place on earth) for a quick errand before mini golfing. Picture me, pulling the oh-so-swift move of passing out in Wal-Mart, in a dress, (according to the hubs) on the floor. (Gross. And go figure, no one in Wal-Mart even batted an eye). The hubs is convinced that security has tagged the footage of him getting me out of the store (apparently being dehydrated makes one look both drugged and wasted) in case any 30-something chick turned up kidnapped in the area. I’m more worried that the next email round of “People of Wal-Mart” will feature me in all my glory. Long story short, no extended date night for us. Good start to the vacay. Date night #2 went much better. Although it started with discovering that bad things can happen when we put T down for a nap in just a diaper, it ended with me kicking the hubs butt in mini golf.  And yes, two points counts as kicking his a$$. Date night goal achieved. Finally.

In between the date nights, the rest of the week was as close to perfect as you can expect with a toddler in a new time zone in a new routine in a new place. I got pretty good at making sympathetic noises and eye rolls to random people when he threw temper tantrums at totally inopportune times. (You know, like after my friend and her 9-month old son traveled two hours to get to our place and T made an epic scene when I refused to let him catapult himself into the deep end of the pool during our playdate. Or as soon as we paid our (kind of hefty) admission at the Alligator Farm to take him to see cool animals*.) Luckily, he had his cute moments too, like blowing kisses and waving “bye bye” to every waitress and restaurant go-er he saw over the week and trying to play fetch with random dogs and their owners on the beach. So not everyone in Florida hated us.  

Sigh, tantrums and all, it was great and fun and as relaxing as can be during life with a toddler. And I miss it. Already. I wanna be back on vacation. 

My beach baby

A vacay play date with friends.

We went to see the fishing boats every night. He's blinking, but that is joy on his face. And yes, he is not wearing pants. AGAIN.

On the other hand, T could care less about the gators.

He had more fun playing on the Alligator Farm's playground. And yes, that is sweat. He played hard. 

Contemplating life during a stroll on the beach. 

Playing in the ocean surf. 

Loving "jumping" the waves with his daddy. Some lady actually offered us to borrow her (teenage) son's bodyboard because T was having such a blast. Nice thought, but really lady? Might be jumping the gun a bit.

Trekking to the pool with the hubs.

*Mental Note: 18-month olds could care less about gators and crocs when it’s 90 degrees and 95% humidity outside. 

Fishing trip = success

Every year we go on at least one fishing trip with the Hubs’ family. He loves to fish. His stepdad loves to fish. His mom likes to tease them about not catching any fish. I just like being by the water.

The place we’ve been to for the past few years got to be a struggle as T entered the picture. Last year he was pulling up on everything and doing the furniture-holding-walk when we went – and the place we stayed was not geared at all for babies learning to stand. It was also in an area completely oriented for fishermen, which meant that it was a great place for the hubs to stand on a pier and catch fish on all night long (unless it was windy, or calm, or rainy….or any other weather conditions that made fish “not bite”) but not so hot for me to hang out with a child all day long in because there was nothing to do in the entire area but sit in the house or visit the one bar in town where no one had any teeth. No joke. Not exactly a baby-friendly location.

This year we decided to try Rockport. It gets a thumbs up from this mom! The hubs didn’t catch all that much from our dock (but did well enough with a fishing guide to head home happy) but I was completely satisfied with the trip from every other standpoint.

There is a little mile-long beach there that is absolutely toddler-perfect. First, because it’s not actually on the Gulf of Mexico, there were no waves. While this East Coast girl likes waves in theory, in practice, with a 17 month old, I was completely happy that there were none knocking him around. Even better, the water actually stays really shallow for an insanely long stretch.  So T could actually “frolic” in the “surf” and run out into the water (Yes, the child has no fear of water) without me having to worry about him being swept away to sea. The beach had several playgrounds that were toddler-sized, which I thought he’d get a kick out of  - but he was too busy chasing the seagulls with graham crackers to even notice there were climbable things in front of him.

My child - beach bum and future fisherman extraordinaire

Oh, and there was an ice cream shop. A win-win for T AND me.

We didn’t do much else since he played so hard at the beach that his nap times stretched into eternity. But it was a successful enough trip for me to want to go back (and bring some of T’s toddler friends!) so that’s good enough for me!