12/52 2014

Just one, simple photo, from one simple moment. Sometimes it is the simplest things that make a Mumma/Mummum happy. (Tamika calls me Mumma, Jarvis calls me Mummum). Looking over and seeing your two children so comfortable and cuddling up on the couch.

This week Jarvis has learnt to say Tamika's name. Okay, not really, but for the first time he is actually addressing her by something. The unfortunate thing is, he is shortening Tamika, who sometimes gets Teak, to Dick. This week all he talks about is Dick, he will say "Dick home", his way of asking if Tamika is coming over. Lucky for him, Tamika has had dinner with us every night this week, bar for Thursday night. During the day he will ask "Dick home" and if I am not quick enough he gets my mobile and calls her. Yes, he knows how to unlock it and phone his sister.

Last year Jodi inspired me to pick up my camera and turn the focus inward. This year I have opted to continue with the series as I feel there are still so many family stories to be told through photos. So I will continue to Link up with Jodi  (the artist formerly known as Che & Fidel now Practising Simplicity) for the 52 Project.

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.

TIME FOR LOVE

I cannot read about the devastating news of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, without my eyes filling up with tears. My heart hurts so much with the pain of what has happened. I look at my children and feel such sorrow for the poor families affected by this terrible tragedy.

Apparently the family of the shooter shared a "passion" for the gun range and went on family trips there. But the shooter always stood apart from the family and several reports note him as ‘odd’. On the news US President Barack Obama wiped away tears as he went on national television to express his "overwhelming grief" and allude to a need for more restrictive gun controls.

Both of these points make me feel such frustration and sadness. It has been long overdue that America should re-open the gun control debate. But there was one take that has got me thinking about Mental Health issues, and not just in the US.

Here is Morgan Freeman's brilliant take on what happened yesterday:

"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.
It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed
people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of just pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news."

No more lives need to be lost in such a senseless act. Please take care of yourself and each other. My wish for Christmas is for people to be kind to one another.

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.