TEN THINGS TO ACHIEVE BEFORE MY 45TH BIRTHDAY: STOP FIGHTING THE TICK TOCK

Aging was never something that concerned me. I always thought I had plenty of time to achieve everything I wanted in life. Numbers? Who cares what number you are. For a whole year I thought I was older than I was.

Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907-1954). Henry Ford Hospital, 1932. Also known as Flying Bed.

In my twenties I always thought I would have a dozen children, live on a property and grow vegetables and have chooks. However, I became a single mother at 24, so my goals moved. They were to educate myself and to travel. Plus, I always want prioritise my relationship with Tamika.

I turned thirty, and was happy I had achieved all that I had. I adored Tamika, we were broke as, but she never wanted much. I thought the only thing I wish I could give her was a sibling. Her father gave her three, but that is another story.

I met Justin, and all clichés aside it was pretty much love at first sight. I fought it for ages because of the age difference. But as soon as I got over being fourteen years older, I allowed myself to be happy and in love. For me there was only one other thing needed. Okay, well more than one, I wanted babies with Justin.  

Fast track this story, passing years of trying, surgeries, fertility issues, fertility treatments, miscarriages, and a whole lot of heart ache. 

Charcoal, pencil and tea on paper

I fell pregnant, and into our world came Jarvis. I did not think it was possible to love another child as much as I love Tamika, oh but I do.

Photo taken by Justin

So you think I would be happy. One girl, one boy, two amazingly beautiful children. But why is it I cry my heart out each month when my period comes? My head tells me not to be greedy, to appreciate what I have, but my heart cries for another baby. I know time has run out. To fall pregnant when I was younger was hard enough, but now I am almost 45, I know it will not happen.

One of my ten things to do before my 45^th birthday was to stop crying each month when my period comes. But as of yet I have not achieved it, if anything, each month closer to my birthday my heartache gets worse. Depression and tears slap me about. 

Crayons on paper

TRAVEL WITH A BABY/CHILD CAN BE EASY AND STRESS FREE

I have travelled as a sole parent with a baby through until Tamika became an adult. Now I am travelling with a baby through to toddler, with a partner. I have been often asked for hints on the best options. After our trip to Sydney and seeing a poor mother struggling with her baby I thought I would write a post on the knowledge I have gained over the last twenty years of travel.

Just a small selection of the places I have been with Tamika. 

Each age group comes with its own set of challenges and need to be addressed separately. People often think travelling with a small baby as a sole parent would be the hardest thing, but I challenge them to travel with a pre-menstrual sixteen year old that just got dumped via text before a flight from Australia to Spain. Oh that was a torturous flight!

There were lots of tears on this flight

Today I will concentrate from newborn through to two year olds.

I have always used a baby sling, even when Tamika, and now Jarvis, is too big and heavy for them. It is so much easier at the ticket counter and customs having free hands, even getting on board as it allows you to navigate the isles. Yes you will have to take them off to go through the x-ray, but over all it is an amazing to have your hands free and know your child is close and safe. I also use the sling to put the baby in so I can nap on board the flight, on our flight to China Tamika stayed in the sling for almost the entire time, asleep on my chest. Jarvis did the same thing from our flight from France to Korea.

Jarvis has loved the sling from birth and I used it all of the time, right up until it got stolen this weekend in Sydney.

I have a bulkier and heaver pram that was gifted to me, so before we travelled to France I bought a cheaper light weight stroller. Something that I can lift with one hand with ease. I check this in with my luggage, if, unlike me and you do not want to use a baby sling, in Australia you can take a pram/stroller all of the way to the gate with you and the staff will then check it in for you. You just have to let the staff know when you are checking in your luggage you are going to do this.

Our cheap, lightweight stroller

I then have two separate bags, a backpack for the child and a bag for me. This is why the sling comes in handy. The backpack is filled with everything and anything possible to amuse the child. Each and every child will have their favourite things. These must be bought along to give the child a sense of familiarity, to what can be a strange and stressful situation. I also pack a couple of new things to be bought out separately throughout the flight. Some parents now use Smart Phones, IPads and portable DVD players, but I am use to travelling with Tamika before these things were available and so don’t use them with Jarvis.

In my bag, besides the wipes and nappies, I always pack at least one to two changes of clothes for both myself and bub. Call me vain but I like to dress nice when I travel, I have been given a couple of upgrades over the years (appearance and lots and lots of nice manners go a long way). However, once on board I change my clothes into comfy options. I get cold on long flight so this is also taken into mind. Plus if you end up with either vomit or poo on you, it is nice to know you have something clean to wear.

In my bag I also pack allot of food, small things that take a time to eat. You will be given food on each flight for your child, but snacks are a must. Sultanas, cheese sticks, fruit sticks, anything that take awhile to unwrap and consume. You are allowed to take drinks on board for the baby so a sippy cup filled with water is ideal, as they too can dehydrate on long fights. 

I have a small bag inside my bigger bag that I take out before the plane takes off, I fill this with wipes, two nappies, food and drinks. So much easier to have one small bag tucked under the seat than to have to annoy other passengers by getting your bag in and out of the overhead locker. 

I am also a big believer in a dose of Nurofen before take off, and to breastfeed. If breastfeeding is not an option something they can suck on to help their ears is invaluable.

I think the most important thing is to not stress, stop worrying about what the other passengers think of your crying, shitty child. Children are so good at picking up on your stress. Instead try to turn things into a game. Jarvis loved tearing the vomit bag into strips and throwing it on the floor. This amused him for almost an hour on our flight to Fiji. On our flight to Sydney, Jarvis found the in-flight magazine to be the most entertaining thing from us reading it to him, to him reading it, to then shredding it and making paper hats.

There are so many more hints I can write about, I have been on so many flights with children, but these are the basics. But most of all enjoy the experience of travelling with your child.

LOOKING AT THE POSITIVE

It was a week of hospital visits (yes more than one). Doctors visits (with not so good test results for myself and someone very close to me). A week of a sick toddler, who then gave it to his Dad and I (love how gastro attacks everyone in the family, even Tira vomited). A week of a broken computer. A week basically filled with injury, illness and stress.

I was having a woe is me kind of day yesterday, but then a few things made me stop and think of how lucky I actually am, and instead of looking at the negative in each situation to find a positive. So here I am being honest and turning my negative into a positive.

I may be really broke, but I get to stay at home with Jarvis every day, something I did not get with Tamika. I may have a broken, on its way out, computer, but I have a clever partner who googled how to fix it and this old thing is now working again.

It is only gastro, and each time Jarvis farts/sharts he laughs, yes what a boy I have who already finds farting funny.

The doctors’ results are harder to turn into the positive, my good friend has been trying for ages to fall pregnant, and I finally convinced her to see the fertility specialist I saw. Her results have come back good for her age, but her partner has being diagnosed as infertile. My heart goes out to her, I know how hard it is to want a baby and not be able to have one, or in my case another one (or six). Yes call me crazy, but it fiancés and my body would let me I would have a dozen babies. Yes this scares Justin.

I got my results back; two were okay, one not so good. But a little more cutting and it should be all good. A pertinent reminder to cover up and slip slop slap.

I have already spoken about Jarvis’s fist ambulance and hospital visit, however on Monday we had a second visit to emergency. Justin, Jarvis, and I were playing in the park and Jarvis tripped over busting not only his knee, but his nose open again. But it is okay, Jarvis now thinks emergency ward is a place to play with other kids.

So, yes I have had a crappy stressful week, but sometimes you need these to think of how good your life normally is and to make a point of looking for the good. The first image is of a rose I found in our garden, I did not even know we had a rose bush until I tackled the over-grown side of the house that I always avoid. But I cleaned it up and look what I found!

 Must remember to clean this section of the garden more often.

 How pretty are passion fruit flowers?

 I have passion fruit! Does anyone know when they are ready for picking?

TAMIKA, MY FOREVER BUBBY

I talk a lot about Jarvis here, but not as much about Tamika. I think it is because I do not know where to begin. How do I go back 20 years to tell the story of Tamika my first born? How do I begin to explain how much she means to me, and just how much she has shaped me as the person I am now?

Things were so very different with Tamika. Early, and impatient, she came out screaming at the world in an extremely quick, intensely painful labour, but then she latched onto the breast, sighed and fell into a deep contented sleep. That girl loved to sleep, and at almost 20 years of age she still does.

Being a single Mum, life was different; us two girls stumbled and learnt together. With Tamika at my side we travelled the world, 16 countries by the time she was 16, and experienced life. Together we grew up, me as a woman, and her as a child. Now Tamika is an adult, a woman/child. She is starting her own business and early next year going on her first overseas holiday without me.

We fought, we butted heads as she got older, she made me cry on many occasion with her harsh words. Yet at the end of the day she would still come into my bed and cuddle with me. You don't want your child to support you, but she did, and still does. She is the person I want to turn to whenever I want to discuss something, whether it be the small things or the big things. She encouraged the relationship with Justin, then held my hand through the fertility treatments, the miscarriage, and then through the birth of her brother.

It does not matter how old she gets, or how strong she is in her support of me, for me Tamika will always be my Bubby. I will always love her to the "Blue Moon and back on a blue balloon.