we did not escape unscathed...

This post could also be titled "Nightmare at 30,000 feet" or "The day the friendly skies took a turn for the worse" or "Hey, flight attendant, get me a triple shot of whiskey...and I don't care if it costs more than my airfare."

Our trip home from IL was every bit as horrible as our trip to IL was wonderful.

A lady was kicked. A flight attendant was cried at. A little head badly conked when tantrum convulsions led to the said head making direct contact with the metal arm rest. Twice.

Oh yeah, and the juice cup...brought out as a saving grace in hopes of calming the storm. I handed it to Mr. Hysterics and, when the top was flipped back to expose the straw, the laws of physics kicked in and juice-under-pressure went spraying 15 feet in all directions. This, of course, only served to fuel the fire of fury in M. So I flipped back the top and frantically searched for the baby wipes. Of course, M couldn't leave it alone and so we spent the next few moments..which in reality was a slow motion play-out of eternity...with M opening the top, getting sprayed in the face, screaming more, and me closing the top, unsuccessfully trying to quiet him, and wiping apple juice off of irritated travelers with my soggy baby wipes.

And that was just in-flight.

Screams of protest coming from the public bathroom. Screams of selfishness coming from the kids' play area. Screams echoing throughout the long corridors...and all erupting from the mouth of my kid.

The words "Flight attendants, please prepare the plane for landing" have never sounded so good.

I wasn't surprised. I knew it was coming. M's sleep while at my mom's was diminishing every day....naps shorter...nights more restless. And so again, on travel day after a night lacking of zzzzz's, he woke too early, took a 40 min nap pre-flight, and never shut his eyes again.

I think the next time we decide to travel out of state, we're walking.

edited2add: Hey Shelly from Nashville! Thanks for de-lurking! Yes, Monical's is always a MUST when I go home. I could eat a whole large pizza by myself. Usually I do the one-two punch and get Monical's AND Avanti's!!!

Flying with baby

Anyone know the safety guidelines for flying with a toddler? I have been purchasing M his own seat (for the sanity of unlucky sucker who gets stuck in a row with us) and, while I have tried to buckle him in at times, it's pretty much a lost cause. I have read about people taking their car seat on the plane...and the thought of that makes me shudder, cringe, and weep for more than one reason. So is it OK that he alternates from my lap to his seat to my lap to his seat..and on and on?

I saw this contraption: http://www.kidsflysafe.com/, and it looks like a great alternative to the car seat but, has anyone been successful at buckling in a 17 month old baby boy for an entire flight???????????

It's 11:11 pm, and I can't think of a title for this post

OK. So going through my photos from the trip I realized I didn't take as many as I thought. What was I doing that whole time? I'm pretty sure eating. My mom has a killer junk food cabinet that wrecks me every time. I can't recall too many moments when there wasn't a high fat, high sugar, high cavity producing goodie in my hand. And just how can one bother with juggling a camera if one is worried about dropping a handful of Sugar Babies???

So I plugged some photos into an album...but I'm tellin' ya that you baby fanatics might be disappointed. And ask for your money back. There aren't that many of Matthew because some of the pics I took didn't even look like him. It was like looking at photos of someone else's kid in my kid's clothes. But my mom has a sweet flower garden...and my camera was lovin' every minute of it.

So click HERE for the photos and choose the album "IL trip."

As a side note for you 1st time mamas who have yet to fly with your baby, I thought I would share a list of "baby entertainment" contents in my carry-on in hopes it might help you in your travels.
1. Flask of vodka (Just kidding, you don't need to pack your own sedation, they sell it on the airplane for $5 a glass!)
2. Snacks, snacks, and more snacks (preferably ones that make no mess yet take a long time to eat)
3. New books (I go to Dollar General and buy $1 books that have lots of flaps for baby to open/close)
4. Stickers/Paper (I have been using stickers for travel since M was 11 months old. I get books of them that come in a variety of shapes/sizes though the bigger ones are best for little fingers. Make sure you have paper to put them on. This can burn up a fair amount of time!!!)
5. A small truck that has a screwdriver. This is difficult to explain but the point is that M can spend a lot of time putting the screwdriver in and out of the hole on top of the truck. So something of the same nature is great.
6. Other small items...for example, I took a large nut (the kind a screw fits in but too big to swallow) and we took turns putting it on my finger, then on M's finger, and so on. Two small farm animals to act out conversations with. A wind up rabbit to move across the tray. Etc.
7. Two very light colored crayons and paper.

I'm sure I had more junk in there but actually on the way home, the things M was most interested in were my bubble gum and my hoop earrings, so we played with those for a long time. Oh...and he won't take a teething toy to save his life, so I gave him his toothbrush and that kept him busy for quite awhile. Yeah, like 3 1/2 minutes. Oh, oh...and the thing that commanded most of his attention? The airplane safety guide! Not kidding. We looked at it over and over. No words, so I made up my own. His favorite part was the pic where one guy opens the overhead bin and the suitcase falls on the other guy's head....BONK!!!!

We are back...

How to keep a 1 year old entertained at the airport? Give him an apple!



Waiting to board:

Playing with the "bus" at the airport:

A happy traveler:

This time Matthew and I flew to Illinois to visit my family. While it was nice to have a shorter trip (compared to our train ride), the air travel was not conducive to good baby sleep. Matthew is not a sleep-anywhere-anytime baby. He woke up at 4:30am on travel day and by the time we arrived at 5:00pm, he had only slept about 2 hours. So while he was a traveling champ, it took almost our entire stay at my mom's before he began to get out of his crazy sleep funk. He did sleep better on the way home since we traveled at night. I purchased a seat for him, but he is so long that he took up part of my seat, too! So I spent much of the flight sitting on my hip bone on the edge of my seat trying to make sure this baby slept well! Matthew was very happy to get home and would CRY, CRY, CRY every time his dad left the room.

On another note, this week is our 5th wedding anniversary! We were married in Hawaii and had planned on returning for our fifth, but that may have to wait til our tenth! So, since we couldn't go to Kona, we had to settle for Macaroni Grill (we had 2 gift cards!). It was our first time without Matthew since August 13! We pulled a fast one over on him because we put him to bed early so he didn't even know he had a baby sitter! We figured since he was still out-of-sorts from the travel, we didn't want to subject our friend to the fury that might unleash when we left.

Travel info for adoptive parents

After reading Tiffany's comment on my last post, checking out her website, and realizing that she will be united with her sweet Sophia on November 19, I thought I would post some info from our travel experience. This is from a post I made to our yahoo JOH group, so I have deleted any agency-specific information.

Just wanted to share some info about our trip in hopes that it will help out someone who will travel in the future.Todd the Travel Agent - using him helped us because it was busy season and flights were full, not sure that he saved us any money though ($1700+ each). He was able to get us good seats and a bassinet, which we might not have done on our own. Only disappointment was that we suggested the Evergreen Laurel hotel but he put us in CaesarPark. He said it was closer to AIT but that really didn't matter....and I had told him we wanted a hotel with free businesscenter/computer usage...I don't think he really checked into this as the center at Caesar Park was definitely not free!

EVA Airlines - definitely recommend, upgrade to Evergreen Deluxe.If you fly the direct to Taipei and leave at 1:00am, keep in mind that they will serve you dinner very early in the morning...so ifthe thought of something like spicy pork and rice for "breakfast"doesn't sound good, pack some snacks in your carry on! Also rememberthat if you leave the US around 1:00am on the direct flight, you endup arriving in taipei at 5:00 in the morning...so check with yourhotel to seeif you can have early check in.

Caesar Park - Staff was absolutely fabulous, but our room was so worn & outdated (stains on carpet and furniture, no outlets in bathroom, etc). They really did not have any amenities as I have heard other hotels have, such as extra bottles of water, freecomputer usage, free breakfast buffet, hot water spicket, etc. And the bad thing about paying for the computer was that the internet connection was dreadfully slow! They did give us a newspaper everyday, so I kept the one from the day we got Matthew.

Packing - Pack light! We took one big suitcase, one small suitcase,and 2 small carry-ons bags and had more than enough stuff. If your child is in foster care, you may also have a duffel bag from the agency with all of your baby's foster care items. You don't need to dress up much for the appts to get your baby and with AIT. The agency reps actually wore jeans...and at the AIT you don't sit downface-to-face and have a meeting or interview, so don't feel the needto go overboard in packing clothes. I was glad that I packed a fewtrash bags because our hotel room trash cans were really small. I packed disposable everything (bibs, changing pads, washcloths) which was great because then we didn't have to haul around wet/dirty items. I took 1 package of diapers (35 diapers) and it lasted usthe whole trip. Take a small thermos for hot water for bottles...great when sightseeing, atthe airport, or midnight feedings in the hotel.

Picking up baby - If you get an info sheet about your baby (diet, sleep schedule, etc) be sure to s to look this over and ask questions when you get to the foster home/agency. We looked at it and thought "Wow, this is great info!" but after we got back to the hotel with him, we realized we had questions about the info that was listed (i.e....so was the nap mentioned on the paper the ONLY nap he takes every day? Do they still burp him in the middle of his bottle?etc).

In Taiwan we bought 3 cans of formula and one of cereal to use both in Taiwan and at home. Matthew used 7 scoops of formula & 2 1/2 or cereal perbottle, so one can of formula lasted us from the time we picked him u until after we came back home. We also bought a tall formula powder container so that we could fill up the 4 sections with pre-made bottles for the trip home. I suggest buying 2 of these...or,like we did, fill one....and then fill some individual bottles, too,so you don't have to carry-on the big formula and rice cans.

Arriving in the US - To go through immigration, make sure you have all paperwork your agency gives you, as well as a "blue form" that your airline should give you. I think it is actually a white form with a blue line across the top. EVA gave us 3 forms, none of whichwere the correct one. IF YOU GO THROUGH LAX, you will go to line#17...tell someone there that Mendoza said that adoptions are expedited. We waited in a long line (even telling 3 different officers that we were adopting) and when we got to the last guy(Mendoza) he said "Adoptions are supposed to be expedited. Why didn't you come to the front of the line?" Go figure. When you get your baggage, don't forget about the duffel bag from the agency!