transatlantic flights with a toddler
Tomorrow we leave for an eighteen day trip to visit my husband’s family in London. But first, we have to endure an eight hour flight with our 16 month old. Yikes! I can barely keep M entertained for 20 minutes while we wait for the pediatrician. M likes wide open spaces to run, climb and destroy. I’m a little anxious about trying to keep him in such a small space for that long.
Last year, we flew when M was 6 months old. He was not really mobile but it’s hard to entertain a 6 month old. His favorite activities included nursing or being bounced by mom or dad walking up and down the aisles. This was not too much of a problem except for takeoff. For which, he pretty much screamed the whole time. We tried nursing, singing, toys to no avail.
In addition, most tranatlantic flights are overnight. Last year’s flight left at M’s bedtime and it wasn’t until dinner was served and cleaned up that the lights in the cabin were turned down. M did not sleep until this point. And then even when he did sleep it was in 20 minutes bursts. Needless to say, we were all exhausted.
This time we are taking one of the rare daytime flights. I really feel that this should improve the experience significantly. The return trip last year, which was also during the day was so much easier and calm.
So for tomorrow, I have spent weeks preparing. I researched and bought several activity toys that will hopefully entertain M for more than 15 minutes such as this. I bought new books. I’m going to Target tonight to buy trinkets and snacks. I downloaded Sesame Street and Dora onto my iPhone. I’m as ready as possible.
Lastly, I’ve been repeating to myself over and over again that a roll-with-it attitude on my part will make a huge difference to everyone.
I will let you know how it goes. Any last minute tips?
who’s raising your baby?
Last night for the very first-time, I realized that I would like to be a stay-at-home mother. That is a statement I never expected to make. I realized that our daycare provider is the one deciding M’s schedule for the day. I can ask her to try and transition him to one nap so he sleeps better at night, but she is free to ignore my request.
Since she spends five days a week with him, she can also decide what he eats, whether he plays outside or watches TV. Sure we have expressed preferences as to all these issues, but she’ll decide the ultimate schedule for the day.
At home, I try and and prepare organic, healthy foods for M. I am very careful to choose a balance of nutritious foods that came from plants or animals raised in a sustainable way without harmful additions. Our daycare provider cooks meals for M in her home. I can’t ask her to only purchase separate organic food for Milo. Although, I have specified that she purchase organic milk for him. I don’t think that is too much a of hardship.
The food and scheduling issues are great examples of who is making the day-to-day decisions for M. And it’s not me. A friend of mine sympathized when I first came back to work after maternity leave. However, she implied that it would become harder and harder as time went on. I didn’t believe her at the time, but I know exactly what she meant now.
For the time being, I will have to content myself with moving to a part-time schedule, four days a week instead of five. But eventually, I’d like to work three days a week and have four days to spend with M. Only then will I feel like I’m the one actually raising him.
How about you? What is your ideal schedule?
1000 words
As my friends and family well know, I leap from crazy project to crazy project. The latest scheme involves participating in NaNoWriMo, otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month. Every November, accomplished and aspiring novelists pledge to write 50,000 words from Nov. 1 to Nov. 30, or the length of a short novel.
The first time I heard of NaNoWriMo, I was intrigued. However, the second time I saw it mentioned, it completely captured my imagination. Had I not always wanted to write a book? Sure, what I might end up with on Nov. 30 might not be a bestseller, but that’s the point. NaNoWriMo is all about showing you what can be done if you set your mind to it.
As a warm-up, I’m setting a goal of writing 1000 words a day. Technically, I suppose I should be writing fiction for those 1000 words, but I think the important thing right now is to just write.
Ever since I decided to make NaNoWriMo my goal, I’ve been looking around and thinking about what kind of novel and story I would like to write. It’s actually really fun to watch life happening around you and try and turn it into a story.
Ok, 200 words in, my daily goal is looking a little ambitious… good thing I’m going to practice. Could you imagine not writing at all on a daily basis and then suddenly Nov. 1 trying to write 1667 words every day for 30 days! I’d like to picture myself suddenly letting loose all the creative stories and ideas in my head flowing through to my pen onto the page (or through the keys of my keyboard).
What a wonderful feeling that would be, but from what I’ve read of most author’s work is that it’s a battle to write. I’ve always ascribed to the school of thought that when expressing yourself – less is always more. I’ve never been one to fill pages and pages when answering essay questions and the like.
That’s why I’m so intrigued by the 50,000 word goal. I’ve never written anything close to that size before, either fiction or non-fiction. I think my master’s thesis was a paltry 10,000 words and probably took me two months to write.
At the heart of this project lies a childhood dream. I was one of those kids with my nose always buried in a book. My earliest ambition was to be a writer. I used to pride myself on my storytelling skills and even wrote short stories. I can’t remember why I stopped writing and telling stories. Was it because I become too self conscious as a teenager? Was it because of the turbulence of my parent’s divorce?
Whatever it was I want to recover my childhood delight in making up and telling stories.
Ok that’s all I’ve got. 466 words, not a bad start.
How not to start a new blog
Here’s how not to start a blog:
- Sign up for a domain and a Wordpress account on a whim after reading a really excellent article on blogging by Steve Pavlina.
- Start writing immediately without giving any thought to a plan for your blog.
- Not building up a stash of already written articles for when I didn’t have time to research and post.
- Have your first child a couple of months after starting your blog.
- Have the focus of your blog become completely pointless (when we decided not to make the move to London).
For an excellent description of how to start a blog properly as well as tons of other useful information, check out Chris Guillebeau’s 279 Days of Overnight Success on his Art of Non-Conformity blog.
Now that my adorable son is almost three months old and I’m getting a functional amount of sleep – I’d like to get back to blogging! I just need to decide what direction the Pond will take.
In an interesting side note, I recently started reading Pam Slim’s inspiring Escape from Cubicle Nation blog and it looks like she started blogging when her son was about the same age as my son now. This must be the time when new parents can finally come up for air!
Tracking my spending
Mrs. Micah at Finance for a Freelance Life is challenging her readers to manually track their spending in February. This is something I’ve been meaning to start up again. A couple of years ago, I read “Your Money or Your Life” by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin and it really changed how I look at my finances. I tracked my finances manually for several months and learned a ton about where my money goes. I know for a fact that my biggest weakness in eating out. I’ve cut way back on dinners out but still have a terrible time bringing my lunch from home. With all the changes we have coming up, I feel like this would be a useful exercise to help prioritize our spending for the baby and a possible mortgage.
Currently, I’m using Mint to keep track of my expenses. I like how easy it is to check in on my finances. My favorite feature is the trends analysis. Mint creates a pie chart of your monthly expenses broken down into major categories and then you can drill down into each category to see all your expenditures. There are several drawbacks to Mint though. It doesn’t keep track of how much I save each month in relation to the other categories. In addition, because we have many accounts that we transfer funds between, it really screws up the tracking in Mint.
I truly believe that tracking and analyzing spending by hand is the most powerful way to understand where your money is going. Once you have that understanding, then you can start making significant changes.
So here goes.
Feb. 1, Sunday – total $140.80
Breakfast and to-go bagels from Einstein Bros $17.70
Last purchases at Babies’r'us before baby arrives $123.10
Feb. 2, Monday – total $27.12
Drinks and snacks at CVS $4.86
Lunch at Potbelly $6.69
Dinner at Boston Market $15.57
Join in at Where’s my money going?