Friday, September 08, 2006

post-mortem: travels with Danny

ASIDE: If you're interested, I've added a bunch of new pictures to our photo site. More to come soon.

Daniel is at "trial run no. 2" of daycare today. I didn't outright cry today, I just mist up once in awhile. It feels very weird to be able to do whatever I want around the house today on my own terms and schedule! I have to admit that I am enjoying it despite myself. All I hope for today is that D. Jr. will be happier than he was at trial run no. 1.

We returned on Tuesday afternoon from our first real family trip to attend a (lovely!) wedding. We were only away 4 or so days, but we did fly to another province and back, so it was a good taste of what traveling with Daniel is like. While the wedding was wonderful/beautiful and seeing some of our old pals was great, we can't say that we had a really fabulous time due to Daniel having a hard time adjusting to a new environment and being sick with a bad cold for most of our trip. It was certainly a learning experience, though, and there are a million things that we will do differently next time, such as not bring our child along (ha!).

Although there were many excruciating parenting moments (more for my poor husband than myself as he was relegated to non-stop baby duty so I could visit my girlfriends), we learned a lot and the trip has made me feel a million times better about daycare. This is a surprising benefit/outcome, but I feel that if Daniel was fine during and after 4 days of crappy sleep and eating and even did well while being babysat for a few hours by unfamiliar faces, daycare should be no problem after awhile (right?!).

I feel that the picture below pretty much sums up our wedding experience: funny, messy, and a bit destructive. The picture shows our wedding placecards. I'm not sure how well you can see the slobber, tooth marks, and food residue on D. Jr.'s:



D. Jr. flew very well and we are considering doing a trip again soon although maybe we will drive rather than fly. We're thinking Calgary in October (there's a Glenbow exhibit I want to see) and maybe Victoria after that. I think part of the problem we had travelling with him this wedding weekend was that we were trying to fit our baby to a schedule of events that just doesn't naturally match his routine. I think if we do a family trip that isn't for a specific event, we can just plan things around him which will work better.

Anyway, I'm stealing an idea from another friend of mine's blog - I’m converting some of our trip info into a Harper's style index. If you have no idea what I'm talking about go here. So, with apologies to Harper's here's . . .

The Momily Index

Number of hours gone, from leaving our doorstep to arriving back at it: 102
Number of these hours that we each successfully spent sleeping: 11
Maximum number of hours that we each slept in a row: 3
Total number of times Daniel woke up in middle of nights screaming: 150

Total distance travelled by air, return both ways: 2100 km
Total distance travelled by car: 130 km
Number of stores in the town we were staying at that carried Tylenol Cold and Flu for Babies: 0
Total kilometres travelled to locate Tylenol Cold and Flu for Babies: 18

Number of times we drove through Chilliwack, BC: 2
Number of times we heard "Gone, gone, gone, she's been gone so long" while doing this: 1
On scale of 1-10, how Canadian this moment was: 11!

Number of times between 8 and 9 am on Saturday morning that children in neighbouring hotel suites loudly slammed doors: 16
Number of minutes between 8 and 9 am that these same children spent fighting, pushing each other, screaming, whining and crying in hallway outside our door: 45
Number of times this awoke Daniel who was trying to get some sleep: 3
Number of adult strangers attached to these children that Momily yelled at in hotel hallway: 2
Percentage increase in mood elevation that Momily experienced after this: 600%

Number of hairs, not ours, located in "clean" towels in our hotel room: 2
Number of days, out of 4, that we received housekeeping in our room: 2
Number of times we were told that it was "too late" for housekeeping: 1
Number of blankets missing from our "made" bed on one of the days we received housekeeping: 1
Number of kitchen items we discovered in drawers/shelves covered in food residue: 3
Number of dollars too many that we were paying for this fine service: 150
Number of letters of complaint that Momily will likey write about this experience: 2

Number of meals in 4 days that Momily and her husband ate together: 3
Number of these meals that caused us to spend way too much time in the washroom: 2

Number of toys lost or destroyed by D. Jr. in 4 days: 2
Number of millilitres of Coke that Momily spilled all over rental car: 600

Number of "contraband" items that Momily successfully smuggled on to airplane: 2 (baby wipes, apple juice)
Number of these that were intentionally smuggled: 1 (baby wipes)
Number of minutes airport security spent scanning and wanding our baby formula: 5
Number of minutes airport security spent scanning and wanding our baby stroller: 3
Number of minutes airport security spent scanning and wanding our many electronics (laptop, cell phones, ipod, camera): 0

Number of minutes it took us to realize, due to the people seated in front of us on the plane, that travelling with a one year old boy is surprisingly similar to travelling with two 14 year old boys: 6
Shared interests that we observed both D. Jr. and said teenage boys have in common: 8 (Shakira's boobs, Shakira's ass, laughing maniacally for no reason, making unintelligible noises, kicking seat/squirming in seat uncontrollably, eating in general, flirting with flight attendants, great interest in bright and shiny aircraft on runways )

Number of years, estimated by D. Sr., that it will be until travelling with our children is as enjoyable as travelling without them was: 16 Posted by Picasa

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