Now we are flying again

We're now on the wee lass's second intercontinental trip. At 10 months she's far far more active than she was at 3 months. Which makes travel much harder. No downtime at all for us. I got maybe 10 min of sleep on the flight – all of which was on the runway.

The first experiment was taking the tube to Heathrow. We've been hiring cars to the airport so far. But that was getting expensive. At some point we had to try it, so we did. We took the bus to the Piccadilly line, and sat and sat and sat. Part of the experiment was travelling with no pram or car seat. I carried the girl in the Baby Bjorn, and L did the bulk of the heavy lifting of the two bags.

I have to say, OMG, that was a success. Everything was easier. Getting to the airport, walking around the airport, going through security, not checking the pram at the gate. Everything. Everything was easier. If I can get away with it, we're not air travelling with a pram again.

Rush hour was over when we got on, but the car was still pretty full. I headed toward an empty seat, but L forced a man sitting in the "give this up" seat to get up. My husband needs this seat. Perfectly in character for her, considering she did that when she was pregnant. But not truly necessary since there was an empty seat.

The car emptied out just past central London, and we had a long but uneventful trip. I listened to podcasts, while the baby slept and L played games on her phone. That was the last relaxing moment we had for a while.

Our plan was to go to Boston. L's family wanted to see us. We did the maths and it turns out to be cheaper to fly to DC and back for a few days, than the equivalent in hotel fees for everyone. So a month after getting the tickets to Boston we bought an internal flight from Boston to DC. We got the last flight of the day we could, with 2 1/2 hours for getting through passport control, customs, check in and so on.

Checking into a flight with a baby is hassle because you can't check in in advance. So we take our chances that we'll even sit next to each other (I bought my ticket separately), let alone get a "sky cot" for the lass. In between checking in and bag drop, I take the girl to the loo. The baby changing rooms at Heathrow do not work so well with EC. No toilet, just a changing mat, sink and very very full rubbish bins. Fortunately we brought the portable seat which acts as a loo in a pinch. Which, for the first time for me, she used. So with that success behind me, I head back to L, still in the queue, next to someone with an identical nappy bag – which was a bit of a surprise since ours was gift from my mum, bought in the US.

Airport security was soooo much easier without the pram. I just walked through with the baby still attached. Everything went off without a hitch, including lunch, boarding and so on. We even had the middle row of four seats to ourselves. The pilot came on to say we may be able to take off early too. But instead, we sat on the runway for an hour and a half while some engineering issue was being resolved. Eventually they told us to get off the plane, and get on a new one which would be ready in two hours. Our Boston to DC transfer was 2 1/2 hours. At this point we knew we'd be at least 3 1/2 hours late. Bugger.

I was very wary of taking Virgin again after they broke our pram on the last flight we took with them. We spoke to Virgin at the desk, who said Not our problem, you bought the other tickets separately. We spoke to US Air who said Sure, we'll change your flight to tomorrow, but it's up to Virgin to pay for your hotel. We spoke to Virgin on the phone, and they said It's up to the people at the desk, but they should give you a hotel voucher. We spoke to the travel insurance emergency line and they said It's after 5 (it was 5:07), call back on Monday. Can you at least tell me what, if anything, is covered? Nope. Call back Monday. Good luck. Back to the Virgin desk for us, No hotel for you, really. Full Stop. they tell us.

On, the bright side, on the way back to the desk there was a big queue, but it was moving at a moderate pace. So I took out the lass and walked her through the queue. It was going just fast enough for her to keep us. Her first queue!

So, we qet on the new plane in bit of a cranky mood. Adding to the annoyance was the fact that there were people sitting in the row next to us now. However, it wasn't such a bad thing – they were there for the other sky cot. They were travelling with an 11 month old girl. We did the usual introduction of the children, and giving their ages. This time after half a minute I remembered to add Oh, and I'm Bob and this is L.

I'm trying to hard to remember this part of introductions. Almost always I meet other parents and come away knowing their child's name, but almost never do we exchange adult names.

At one point the two little girls sat next to each other and tried holding hands (the best they could do is hold wrists) which was really cute. Another cute point was when L was holding our child on my left, and the other girl was on my right. I announced I'm surrounded by baby toes! to the amusement of the rest of the row.

Our girl just would not sleep in the sky cot. Every attempt L made to put her in would wake her up crying. So she eventually just held the sleeping girl in her arms. After a few hours I tried my luck. Success. Except ten minutes later when the other girl started crying which woke ours, crying.

In the end, L and I got maybe 20 minutes of sleep between us. The girl got about 4 hours. The toilets were just small enough that she couldn't wriggle too far, but large enough I could put her on the loo without raising the changing table. she loved the air jet. It distracted her and she played with it.

Passport control and customs were fast and easy to get through. We were out by 9:30 or so. We could have made the 2nd flight if we'd arrived a couple hours earlier. I was hoping the 2nd flight was delayed enough we'd make it, but no. It left on time.

We went up to the Virgin making-connections person just past customs, explained the situation, and he said, Ok, we'll get you a hotel, but you'll have to go to the US Air desk at Terminal B to sort out a replacement flight in the morning. Just sit here for a few minutes while I do the paperwork. Okaaaay. Why they couldn't do that in the first place is beyond me. But I'm not complaining. Literally. This saved me the effort of a huge scathing letter I was going to write to them about their drop in quality of customer service.

We went out to catch the shuttle to terminal B. No shuttle in sight. The sign said it was 0.3 miles, so we decided that since we still had the trolley for the luggage, and the girl was safely in the Baby Bjorn, we'd just walk it.

Bit of a mistake there. The airport is a big U shape. And the route through from E to B, walking inside the airport is not direct. Two notable things. First, there's the rocking chairs in terminal C. The other is the really nice baby changing facilities in terminal D. Enough room for both adults and the luggage. A huge bin which was easy to get waste into, and wasn't full (like in Heathrow), a good size changing table and a toilet, so we could EC the lass. Which was good, since she was ready to go by that point.

We finally got to terminal B, which was itself a big U shape – we had to trek through the car park to bypass the bulk of the walk. I was terrified that they'd be closed, but at the far end of the US Air area was one open desk with a live person. We wearily marched up to him and explained ourselves. He told us that when they built this airport, they must have done huge amounts of research on airport design so they could build the worst possible layout that could fit in the area. We certainly agreed. He also told us that the only reason he was still there is that there was a delayed flight to Buffalo still to come, and if it were on time, the desk would have been closed. Scary bit of luck for us.

He cheerfully and immediately put us on the next flight at 6am (ick) and were done. He told us how to get to the hotel and we were on our way. Via terminal A – so we'd walked through the entire airport by the time we were done.

The hotel is attached to the airport. We found ourselves suddenly in the conference centre in the hotel still pushing the luggage trolley we got when we picked up our bags. This did not work at all well on the carpet. So we cheekily abandoned it and went off in search of the lobby. On check-in we found we also had $100 of food vouchers. Which was good, since we were starving, and room service in the US is hideously over-priced. We got to our room at 10:57. L found the room service menu which said it ended at 11. A mad selection of food and a panicked attempt to figure out the room phone followed, but we got the order in on time.

They gave us a travel cot for the lass, but she did not take to it at all. We had to be up at 3:40, so cosleeping was the far better option than trying to convince the child to use the cot. We collapsed on the bed and were up again far too soon.

This time we took the shuttle to the airport. A quick check in and baggage check and we were off to the security queue. They saw the girl and sent us through the business-class queue, which was nice. I had to take off my shoes, but the baby could stay attached. They took me aside for a hand check, at which I joked, Whose hands? We have four of them before I panicked and realised you do not joke with airport security. But the woman laughed and passed me on to someone who brushed over my hands with a magical chemical-sensing wand. Whatever it checked for, I did not have, so all was well. I still wonder if that's standard with people carrying babies, or it was random? Were they checking for baby poop and sudocrem?

There were no baby changing rooms in terminal B, so we had to make do with L changing her in the ladies'.

The puddlejumper we got on to DC was small, but at least we sat next to each other. No sky cot. Not even a baby seatbelt. We just held on to the kid during takeoff and landing. We took turns walking the lass up and down the aisle during the flight, so she'd not get restless and maybe use up some of her energy. I passed person after person head down and asleep on their tray. One of the stewardesses was friendly and chatty, which helped keep me awake enough to survive the flight.

At the end, we landed early, breezed out of the airport and spent 1/2 an hour trying to get the car seat fitted in L's sister's car. The baby cried the whole car ride, and would only be settled by being sung French lullabies by L and her sister. She finally fell asleep two minutes from the house.

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The wife's cycle has started up again. It wasn't nearly has dramatic as what I'd read on various blogs. It was more Hey. I'm back. Just popped in to say hello.

The most annoying thing (for me at least) is the irregularity of it. It's weird after almost two years of this baby-growing process to have pregnancy scares again. There's just no way to know if it's late or there's a bun in the oven. It's not like the usual "sore breasts" sign works when you're already breastfeeding.

For the record, there is no bun.

The way I like to look at it, we've hit perfection with this girl. I don't need another child. My biological clock is content with what we have – which I'm rather grateful for.

Another, more cynical way to look at it is that, thinking back at all the stages we've gone through, to be honest I'm not that interested in doing it again. I'm happy with this girl and it's "cured" that yearning need I felt before. Somehow, with the biological clock out of the way, any thoughts of new babies always end up in logicland, where they prove to be impractical. I don't want to have to think of another set of names, or find a house with enough space for another person, or worry about cots and clothes and mediate arguments and worry about being hyper-fair.

It's hard to describe without sounding offensive to by daughter or just generally hypocritical. I'll just say she completes our family well and leave it at that.

Food

Dining is starting to settle down a bit. We're almost at a point I can live with. She eats with us, but she eats her own food. For L and I, I make the usual grown-up food. For the little one I usually roast some vegetables. No spices, just roasted at low temperature (125-150°C) for a few hours. I start the oven when I start dinner. Chop some combination of mushrooms (She really likes the mushrooms), onions, peppers, aubergines, celery, potatoes or whatever else we have at hand. Put it in a dish and take it out after we're done eating. Put it in the fridge, then dole it out over the next few days.

I have to say, the stuff tastes brilliant. I've never really had the patience for roast veg for meals before, but this works really well, since it's so little work and prepped in advance. It's hard for me to not pick at the food meant for her. Though I draw the line at not taking food from her tray.

My only concern is that it really does taste better on the day it's cooked. But it does still taste ok after being refrigerated a few days.

We feed her by putting a selection of stuff on her tray,and letting her pick it up. She's done when she doesn't try to eat anything new we put down.

Breakfast is less exciting – sliced fruits: Banana, orange, apple. Whatever else we have around – carrots, tomatoes. I do need to start having a more consistent set of breakfast foods around. Like toast.

We used to try to put her to sleep before dinner. At first she'd be in the moses basket we kept in the dining room. She'd often sleep for the first 10 minutes of dinner, then start crying. One of us would gulp down dinner and settle her, while the other would eat. Usually it'd end up with L feeding her.

After a while she'd sleep through dinner. She graduated to sleeping in her own cot. We'd aim a video phone at her and watch her over skype on the laptop. This often degraded to one of us bolting downstairs to collect the crying girl, bringing her upstairs til she was calm again.

After 6 months had passed we started baby-led weaning. Which started off very slowly. She'd take the stuff, put it in her mouth. Chew, sometimes completely masticating it. Then it'd just fall out on the tray of her high chair. I started with simple easy to grab food like carrot sticks, celery, sliced peppers and cucumber. It certainly helped her master grabbing things. She was holding between thumb and index finger quite deftly. But that was pretty much all she got out of it. This went on for a couple of months. It seemed any food she'd ingest was by accident.

It was really cute at first. She'd make a horrible face whenever she was introduced to a new food. This stopped pretty quickly, and the only food she's really reacted too since was a mushroom from a thai green curry. I suspect it was too hot for her. I recently tried feeding her a chunk of lemon (seeds removed) to see if she'd replicate the looks in the babies tasting lemon for the first time video. She ate it right up. Yum.

We got to the point where we were about to give up the baby-led weaning. We decided to feed her puree one meal a day.

Day one worked. She at an entire meal.

Day two, she started to be dubious about the puree.

At day 3 she was refusing the puree entirely. And eating solids. It's like she realised that if she did not get on with eating the real food we give her, she'd have nothing but this mush forever. Which, in fact, was more or less true. Or perhaps she finally figured out how to swallow. Which seems more true, but doesn't sound as nice.

So what's next? At some point we need to start feeding her more grown-up food. I'd like to be able to only have to make one meal. I also need to get more D and iron in her diet – since she's not getting much from milk.

The real downside here is the output. Her stool really smells bad now. And is much less pleasant to clean up. She's defecating far less now, and she's using the loo for most of it. But that just makes the dirty misses even harder to deal with.

Taking risks

I kind of envy the child's tenacity. She learns how to do things by watching and trying. When she tries she really does try. She'll spend ages at something she wants to do. Going over it again and again til she gets it. She takes risks I'd not be at all comfortable with. Like climbing stairs. The steps are up to her waist. She lifts a leg to the next step, bending sideways to get her knee high enough to plant solidly on the step. She uses that and the bannister on the opposite side to pull herself up. We have hard wood floors. If she falls, it will hurt. But she tries anyway.

A week ago she climbed up slowly with much grunting. Now she can do 3 steps, one after the other, in under a minute.

I can't remember where I came across this, but I recall scientists saying that children and teenager's brains are hardwired to take risks. That might very well be true, but I think the reason in this case is simpler than that.

Her entire life, all she's known is that whenever she fails and hurts herself, someone quickly scoops her up, cuddles and kisses her. Holding her telling her how good a try she made and how much they love her. With such rewards for failure, I can see why puts so much effort into what she does.

I wish I could find some way for risk taking to be so rewarding.