Wow. It's October. I forgot to look back at when my last post was, but I know it was a long time ago and I believe we had just booked our trip 'down' east to see my parent's new place. Well - that trip came and went and it was awesome. Seriously amazing. Here's some details about the trip.
It all started with confirming our tickets. I looked for days online to find the best deals, best time of flights to coincide with feeds and naps, the 'cheapest' times to travel, etc. Our nanny was heading back to Holland for about a month to get married, so we thought a change of scene would be good for everyone - we were right.
Here's a list of what I was anxious about. Most things have to do with Ryan:
- germs
- traveling with oxygen
- feeding him 'on the go'. Since he's used to a certain routine with feeding
- naps
- germs
- forgetting something important (like his custom compounded reflux meds) - we didn't forget them!
- sleep - for everybody
- Ryan not having his therapies - OT, PT, feeding, AVT, etc
- germs
- list after list of what to pack
I lost a lot of sleep in the days leading up to the vacation. I had lists galore and we were well prepared. Until the day we left. Everything was packed, organized and ready. The plan was everyone except Ry had a suitcase, carry on, and personal item. Scott and I each had a big bag, Sadie was 'checking' the small suit case that had Ry's clothes and her carry on had her clothes, and she had her backpack with activities for the plane. Scott had a laptop bag and Ry's 'feed bag' or 'danger bag' as we called it because it was full of water, white powders (formula powder, calorie powder, and laxative powder). (The details of our luggage are important so pay attention). We got our neighbour who works from home to drive us to the airport in our car so that we could save on parking. Genius. We loaded up 2 of those really hard to push luggage carts for Scott to push and pull, I had Ry in the stroller, Sadie standing on the stroller, and I was rolling the o2 concentrator behind me. We waited for what felt like forever to get our boarding passes and finally made our way through the gate. Apparently having a baby with oxygen doesn't get you front of the line access... I swear I heard every cough and sneeze in the entire airport and probably gave the stink eye to every offender. Our flight left at 3:05 so I wanted to feed Ry before that so that his tummy had time to settle. We gave him a bottle and he actually took it like a champ. At 2:45 I glimpsed at the little compartment where they let you measure your carry on bags and I did a little checklist in my head. We had our personal items (laptop bag, my purse, Sadie's backpack) and we had the 'danger bag' and Ry's diaper bag... WHERE'S SADIE'S BAG???!!! On the floor of our room waiting to be brought downstairs. After whisper swears and public crying, I called my mom with my embarrassing story and in a flash between her, my dad, our neighbour, and Scott a plan was devised for neighbour to go back to our place, get the bag, take it to the office, have it shipped overnight to NS. Genius runs in my family luckily... it must skip a generation though.. So - lesson learned. Do a final sweep of your house before you leave... it was so chaotic and we were so preoccupied with everything else - neither of us noticed the hot pink with lime green polka dot bag that was missing. Duuuh. Luckily that was the most major setback of the trip. It also took up a lot of space to tell you about it, so the rest of the trip might be best described in pictures.
In summary:
- The house is amazing
- Both kids loved the beach, the rocks, the kites, the rain, the sun, the tide, the fog, the moon, the toys, the tv, the indoor 'campfire'
- I loved having no appointments
- Ry got his first tooth after about a month of ridiculous 'teething' behavour
- he started crawling
- he started sleeping through the night
- both kids and scott got bad colds but Ryan handled it like a champ and it didn't progress to a hospital stay
- I overcame my fear of the airport
- Flying with WestJet was terrible for someone with oxygen
- We can't wait to go back
- Settling back in to 'reality' is hard work!
- Here are some pics! It's really hard to summarize the trip in so few picture - I made a slideshow for my parents and it was almost 20 mins long... This is a very short version:
