What I Brought on My Vacation, or: Travelling with a 1 Year Old.

A little over a week after the monster turned one, we went on a trip to visit Mr. Wolfman's parents.

I was majorly freaked out about travelling over five thousand miles for the Monster's first real trip (first flight, first car ride over 5 hours, first stay in a hotel, etc.), and put a lot of thought into planning and packing for him.

Stuff that helped:

We took his car seat.  Of course you need to check that the car seat meets the requirements of your destination and will fit in your rental car, but if you can, it's a great thing to have (bonus: if your car seat is approved for it, and you have the $$ to buy an seat for your baby, you can use it on the plane). I really believe having somewhere familiar to sit in our rental car made a huge difference.

We booked an overnight flight.  Even though he wasn't STTN, it totally worked and he slept most of the way there.

Breastfeeding for takeoff.

Stuff that we brought:

Something to draw with.  We brought a Fisher Price Doodle Pro in travel size(?).  It's still a bit bulky because there's a big frame on it.  I think he'll get a lot of use out of it for future trips, now that he knows how to use it, but it took him a while to work it out. I think an etch-a-sketch may have worked better, although the contrast isn't as good; the monster liked when the picture showed up, but got frustrated with things like holding the pen, the fact that the other end of the pen didn't write and the fact that the pen would only write on the board (which is the idea, after all).



Something to read: specifically, buggy books.  These are mini board books with holes in the corner,, so that they can clip to the stroller.  We had one with us and bought one in the airport after the first 9 hour leg of our journey.  A new book is a fantastic thing, especially when you're stuck in a boring airport for 5 hours.

Which reminds me: a stroller. We would have died without it.  Even though the monster's been walking for a while, holy crap, do you ever not want to try to navigate an airport without a stroller.  We bought the Chicco umbrella stroller, on sale for about half it's asking price.  It worked well, we used it for three weeks and it held up to being tossed around by airport staff (until the last leg of our homeward journey, when the pedal for opening it got broken off), but I wouldn't have been thrilled with it for $198, which is what we found it for before the half-off one popped up.  But I'm very glad we didn't go for the $30, super cheap one.  The monster being able to recline and sit comfortably made up for the difference in price.


New toys.  Doesn't matter what (nothing messy and nothing that made noise), just new stuff that the monster hadn't seen before.  A Taggies blanket was one of the things.  A sweater for his stuffed animal.  Just whatever that he could see and touch and be amazed by for a few minutes.

I think that's it. How the whole trip went will require a post down the line, but for now, this is all the important stuff I can think of.

***Oh, we didn't bring our pack'n'play and, even though I can't for the life of me imagine how we could have, I wish we did***

Sweet Potato & Apple Pancakes

I haven't been around for a bit (holiday to visit Mr. Wolfman's family - fun, but a whole other post), but I'm back.  I've been wanting to add recipes to this blog for a bit, so here goes my first:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of flour
• 1 sweet potato
• 1 large apple or pear
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 cups milk (at least)
• Butter (a bit)

1. Dice sweet potato and apple (/pear) and steam or boil until soft (if you boil, drain) and mash with a potato masher.  It doesn't need to be creamy, but there shouldn't be any big chunks.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder and cinnamon. Stir until blended, then add eggs and stir until there's no dry powder left.
3. Stir in mashed stuff.
4. Add milk.  At least 1.5 cups, but I don't measure it, I just keep adding milk until the mixture is liquidy enough to pour.
5. Heat a pan on medium-high and add butter - swish it around until it melts.
6. Pour pancake batter into pan, and cook like normal pancakes*
7. Put onto a piece of paper towel on a plate.

*More or less.  They don't bubble like normal pancakes, so you'll need to slip a flipper under them to see when they're ready to flip.  It doesn't take very long.

Once they're cool enough, you can either serve them right away, or put them in the fridge (for 2-3 days) or the freezer (not sure for how long) and heat them up later.

The little monster loves these things, and I love them because they don't have any added sugar or salt and have fruit and veg.

A Short Post About My One Year Old.

The monster is one! It really is hard to believe.  I spent much of the day before crying, saying he was going to grow up and hate me, how he won't like me when he's a teenager, how everything was terrible.  Clearly, in the last year, my hormones haven't balanced.

As for how he's doing - he's great. Right now he's sleeping horribly and still refusing most solids, but in the daylight hours, he's a happy, active baby.  He's recently worked out how to use his building blocks and loves toy cars and stuffed toys. He's also a fan of pillows.

He pretty much never crawls anymore and has a pretty decent vocabulary, spread over two languages. He's growing up too damn fast.

I could write endlessly about him, but I'll have to save it for another day because we're travelling soon and his first international flight promises to be an experience (which I'm sure will be worthy of its own post - especially because I'm eager to find out what works to keep a one year old calm on a 9 HOUR! flight and will definitely want to share my findings).  So, I'm off to finish packing and running around and losing my mind.

No words

https://www.facebook.com/joshuasfootprints

This couple lost their baby boy and are doing what they can to bring some joy to the world in his honor.  Today would have been his birthday.

12 Reasons Why Your Rant About Peanut Free Schools is a Whiny Load of Crap: an Open Letter

So, in my Internetting, I came across this: http://www.decisive-empowered-resilient.com/12-reasons-why-peanut-free-schools-are-not-okay/

Fair warning, I didn't actually go to the bother of writing out 12 counter points, because it just wasn't worth the time.

I actually had to stop reading the thing part way through, because, well, I actually like English, and reading it was like being stabbed in the soul with a rusty fork.  But I digress.

Dear Annoying Purveyor of Clickbait,

I'm assuming you have never experienced anaphylaxis.  I'm assuming this because anyone who has, and has offspring, would realize that having their child forgo peanuts for one meal a day is a tiny, infinitesimal bother, barely worth mentioning (let alone composing a badly written, rambling "article" about) when compared with the prospect of a child losing consciousness for the last time, unable even to gasp for breath. Imagine your tongue swollen to the size of a balloon in your mouth, and the edges of your vision turning grey. That ought to shut you up - not least because you can't actually talk with your tongue swollen like that. Can't talk, can't yell for help - believe me, I've tried.

Let me tell you something.  No, my child is not important than yours.  No, it is not your responsibility to look out for my child.  But you can be damn sure, even if your kid was the only one, I would happily have my kid miss out on something for one effing meal a day, rather than expose your child to something which could kill her horribly. Because your normal, healthy child actually is more important to me than my supposedly disabled child's need to eat something at every fucking meal.  Unless your kid is the Wicked Witch of the West, yes, I will make concessions to stop my child from accidentally killing yours.

You go on a lot about living in the real world and responsibility and learning to live with the hand you're dealt - and I agree, to an extent.  My own peanut allergy was discovered at a time before epipens and as a very young child, I carried a glass vile of epinephrine and a syringe.  I was taught to ask about the ingredients in *everything*.  But we're not talking about a situation where "live and learn" applies.  We're talking about one slip up could KILL A CHILD.  As in, that normal, healthy child you're so proud of, who shouldn't have to cater to a "peanut allergy kid"?  You would have to explain to her where people go when they die, and why little Billy won't be back to class.  "Well, you see, peanut protein is very important. And Billy didn't ask what was in the cookie you offered him (or you didn't know, or maybe you lied because you didn't comprehend the severity of the situation and thought it would be funny), so now he's dead.  Don't worry, though; not your responsibility."

A lot of your points centre around other allergies that schools don't make allowances for, like soap, etc.  First of all, unscented soaps are a healthier option for everyone - second and more important - we're not talking about a rash or a reaction that can be easily avoided by a kid using their own supplies.  Some peanut allergies are severe enough that touching something that's been touched by another person with peanut butter on their hand could be deadly.  I hope your normal, healthy child is good at washing her hands after lunch - oh wait, my bad, it doesn't matter, because the "peanut allergy kids" should be at home wrapped in cellophane anyway, where they won't bother your normal, healthy, athletic child with their inconvenient habit of having a potentially deadly allergy.

Not a single other student should be accommodating for another child’s inability to meet basic expectations and requirements of being in a public, social environment.

Ok, what the Hell? Really? So, your magical, normal, healthy, athletic, second-coming-of-Christ with a cherry on top sees a blind child walking toward them and you teach them, what, exactly? To say Fuck you, blind kid! I'm not moving out of your way; if you can't get around me, you should be home schooled?  Or, a deaf child asks to swap seats with your perfect specimen of health and normalcy, so that they can see the teacher (or, the horror!, the ASL interpreter)? I assume your kid has been well trained to sneer and thumb her nose?

Your whole argument is basically that you shouldn't be mildly inconvenienced in order to help avoid a potentially life-threatening situation for someone else's child.  Well, maybe you shouldn't. But what can I say? Life is. Schools shouldn't have to change the rules to accommodate your inability to adapt. And if your kids' health is so frail that they can't make it through the day without that healthy peanut protein, maybe you should consider home schooling.

Genius Baby Part 7: Det? & a rant

So the monster has started to use "Det?" / "Dat?" with pointing and upward intonation to ask what things are.  He smiles or laughs delightedly when I answer.

I thought this was a bit soon, so I looked it up, apparently it usually starts around 21 months, so that's kinda cool. I know it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but I always feel proud about these things - proud of him, of course, but also a little proud of Mr. Wolfman and myself, for making his environment one that's conducive to learning.

My parents came for a short visit with my brother last night.  Of course a lot of the visit was them saying to my brother, "You were doing _____ at his age," and similar.  When I pointed out the monster's new question, my mom just kinda shrugged and said, "Yeah," not in an intentionally mean way, but in a all babies do that kind of way.

No mention of what I was doing at the monster's age.  No questions for Mr. Wolfman about what he was doing or what milestones he'd reached.  Before, the only things that mattered were the made up similarities between my monster and my brother, but now it seems like those aren't enough* and we're in some sort of fucked up competition.

Newsflash, guys: I don't care if my brother was more advanced at the same age. I give literally no shits. Since the ages at which he first did various things change with every retelling of the story, I kind of suspect he wasn't.  But maybe he was.  WHO THE FUCK CARES?

My monster is a baby now.  My brother is an adult with his own shit going on - and while I understand the desire to wax nostalgic, my son is not - and never will be - in competition with yours. For anything.  Likewise, I am not in competition with you over who the better parent is.  That's not a question I need answered.  Mr. Wolfman and I do the best we can, we give 100% and we have a happy, healthy, intelligent and active baby to show for it. That is what matters to us.



*perhaps because they were tenuous at best when the monster was fresh, and now that he's a monstrous bear child who basically only shares his ethnicity with my brother, they're downright laughable.

Genius Baby Part 6: Sentences

So far, the little monster has used two sentences.

The first, a few nights ago, was "Mum, no!" (Mum being in English and No in his other language) when I tried to put him back in his crib after a night feed.

The second, today, I told him we needed to change his diaper and he responded with "[his name] dai dai?"

Yeah, not going to lie, I'm a little freaked out.  Mostly delighted, but eep.  He's only 11 months.