Saturday, October 20, 2007

a new mom's attempt at survival part VI: flying alone with a baby


so far it's been one of those nights where i'm just falling asleep when i hear tristan's cries...jolted wide awake, i go to his room to comfort him until he drifts off into a troubled sleep. he's still feeling poorly and i'm not sure if he's teething or what is going on. he has a persistant cough which disturbs his (and my) sleep, but the dr. said its nothing to worry about. and so instead of going back to my nice, warm bed where i will inevitably be jolted wide awake yet again, i chose to blog for a bit where i won't mind the interruptions as much.



speaking of the doctor, tristan had his checkup on tuesday. he is 23lb 7oz and 31in long. i thought for sure he'd weigh over 25lbs because my arms feel like they're going to snap off whenever i pick him up! he now will hold only one of our hands while walking around the house, as long as his other hand is holding onto a toy. i think he could probably take a few steps on his own already, but i don't think he has quite enough confidence yet. he's not pulling himself up at all, or crawling, or cruising around furniture. i'm diligently using signs with him as much as i can, but no results there yet either. we're really enjoying this stage, though because he's not fully into everything yet and he is just SO much fun! his smiles are so contagious.



we've been looking around for a place to move into, and for awhile i was feeling a little desperate because NOTHING was available that was within our price range and big enough to fit us all! however, since yesterday we have found a few reasonable leads, so at least we know we won't be homeless on december 1st! it's a bit difficult to see places that are much smaller and not nearly as nice as the place we're in now, and know that they'd cost us more money than we're paying now! but we're trying to get over that fact and keep an open mind and trust that God will open the right doors for us.



okay, so the airplane story i wanted to tell you....its not nearly as great as lori's airplane stories, but it will have to do. on the way up to canada, tristan was sick. in fact, once we had boarded and i was seatbelted in with tristan on my lap, i noticed a foul odour. looking around me, i noticed that most people were glaring in my direction. the plane hadn't begun to move yet, so i hurridly grabbed a diaper and some wipes and rushed tristan to the miniscule bathroom. the changing table was directly under the ceiling of the bathroom, and poor little tristan barely fit on it! as i began changing him, he began screaming and that's when i noticed that it wasn't just run of the mill poop we were talking about; it was full on sick baby poop. runnier than i wanted it to be. it had leaked through his diaper and onto his clothes and of COURSE i hadn't thought to bring a change of clothes with me into the bathroom! so, with tristan screaming his head off, i used every single wipe i had brought with me, stripped him down, and carried him back to my seat naked except for his clean diaper. as i sat down, the stewardess hissed into my ear "did you put that dirty diaper into a plastic bag before throwing it away?" "no". (big sigh) "well, i guess i'm going to have to fish it out then!" i felt awful, but thankfully i had the nicest lady sitting next to me who was such a help. her name was donna and i think she was my personal angel. that same stewardess, by the way, walked right into tristan's head as i was nursing him and she didn't even say sorry! tristan had a fever during the flight, but thankfully i had thought to pack some infant tylenol into my carry on, so by the time we landed, he was smiling at everyone on board!

fast forward to the flight home... even though i prayed hard that i would be seated next to a nice lady again, we were unfortunately seated next to a very large middle aged man who seemingly had no sense of humour and no fondness for children. tristan happily played on my lap for the first half of the flight, smiling up at the man every once in awhile, but the man never smiled back and acted annoyed whenever tristan's arm or leg happened to bump into his leg (which, by the way was on my side of the seat!) i really had to use the restroom, but didn't have a clue what i was going to do with tristan...there was no way i could comprehend bringing him in there with me! the flight attendants were busy handing out drinks, so i finally just got up, plopped tristan down into my seat surrounded by chew toys and went to the bathroom! when i got back, only minutes later, i nearly laughed out loud. there was tristan stretched out on my seat with his head resting on the unfriendly man's leg. he was holding onto the man's thumb with his fist, while waving it about and shouting gleefully. the expression on the man's face was priceless. he looked like he'd rather be swimming in shark infested waters than sitting where he was. i gave him a big smile and said "thanks for watching my boy!" then picked up my son and gave him oodles of kisses, showering him with the attention he deserved.

all's quiet now in the house and i'm going to crawl back into my warm bed. sweet dreams..

8 comments:

Z-Mama said...

My girls have had a cough for about 2 weeks now!!! They just seem to hang on forever! Ugh!

As for the signing...it really clicks around 12 months old and they will use more and more and eventually start dropping it as they begin to use words more and more. Rae really used a lot of sign between 12-24 months, but since Kams talks a lot more and a lot earlier, she's already dropped most of her signs. She still does MORE and PLEASE...even though she says them too!

L&D said...

Wow. Some people certainly have the personality of a frog.

Miranda said...

man what a fun flying adventure!

Kristal Sawyer said...

Oh...I just LOVE the flying stories! It's amazing how people can be rude to someone so cute. =) I love how you just left him there with that guy...you'd think it would've softened him a bit!

Shannon said...

finding a new home can be frustrating. We always went from too small to something a little bigger so I cannot imagine trying to go directly from big to smaller. Though when we almost moved to California we were going to end up in a two bedroom apartment for probably twice what we're paying on the 1800sf house! So many prayers going your way that you find something perfect and in your price range.


Oh boy do I have flying stories. Two babies (Wesley was 8 months and Ellie 20 months), two flights, 12 hours travel time and no diaper bag.

Lori said...

Bravo! Especially for leaving him in the seat while you went to the bathroom~ that's awesome! And, your poop story sounds about as bad as mine. At least I didn't get comments from the flight attendants about Garrett's diaper.

Jack Ensor said...

Ok, three things:
1) You're Wade's cousin? That's awesome. I'm friends with Wade and Jenn.
2) I can barely handle myself in an aircraft lavatory; I can't imagine changing my kids in one.
3) I think it's funny how the only capital letter on your page is the G that starts God. Very appropriate.

Lovella ♥ said...

Your stories make me want to sit with a cup of coffee and savour every word. I hope that warm bed was able to keep you for a bit.

Stay safe. I'm praying that those fires settle right down.