Grubbs n Critters

April 26, 2011

Holland 2011 Day 1-2: Taking it slow

Apart from visiting family, catch up with some friends and attempting our fate to drive up South to a holiday bungalow, we don’t really have any concrete plans for our vacation this time round. We planned our time rather loosely, all of which were pretty much Spud-permitting.

With that in mind, we arrived on a Friday morning and decided to take the first few days slow.

We went to the neigbourhood mall, visited some friends and went on a cool leisurely stroll around the neighbourhood. It felt nice. On one of the walks back home, I stumbled upon a plant on the garden of someone’s home which happened to be quite close to the sidewalk we were walking on. It is called the Common Grape Hyacinth – apparently sometimes grown as an ornamental plant.

I thought it looked fantabulously gorgeous. To the Dutch, it meant one thing: Spring has just begun.

And, it was beautiful.

Holland 2011 : Surviving the flight FROM Amsterdam

Category: Baby Milestones

The flight back to Bangkok was probably a tad worse that going to Amsterdam…mostly for us since we both only managed at MOST 2 hours of sleep throughout the 10 hour flight journey; with only about 8 hours of sleep the night before.

It was a stressful period prior to boarding:

At check-in, we found out that our seating arrangement were split and I was assigned to a seat some aisle and rows away from Silver Bullet and Spud .
We had excess baggage and had to repack as the Dutch Union rules that each baggage should not weigh more than 23 kg. (our biggest bag was at 30kg).
The security checks were massively hideous. We had a full bag of baby’s stuff we need on board, a stroller, a pump bag, some handy personal belonging plus all the pumped milk liquids in tow. Not the most convenient when everything had to be checked (and I mean taking out almost every single thing that is liquid or in some form of liquid)

The icing on the cake to the stress was when Spud decided to pick the most appropriate time to get cranky just as soon as I got out of the body scanning area and into the “waiting to board” area. I was then instantaneously greeted by a hundred pairs of eyes darting towards me. I sensed that sinister sense of outrage from the fellow passengers as I shamelessly refuse to make any eye-contact whilst I tried to shush Spud down and put her to sleep. However, the harder I tried, the louder she cried, and the more violent the screams became. I can’t really blame her – she was over-tired as not only was it was past her bed-time, she also had very little nap in the day.(Silver Bullet was still clearing security at this time)

All I could do was trying my very best to soothe her without biting her head off! I even retreated to the nearby toilet so I could get her to sleep. One Chinese looking lady walked into the loo to use the bathroom and mouthed off “So loud” when she saw me. I just rolled my eyeballs.

5 minutes later, Spud finally gave in, but decided that she’d wake herself up again on after 2 minutes of power nap. She was more than cranky, but wide awake when we boarded the plane (those hideous dagger eyes again!).

As soon as we settled ourselves down, out came the antihistamine to nurse her cold. She was out for slightly more than four hours slightly before take-off, and we managed to have her in the bassinet again. By the time the meals were served, we only had about an hour of nap before she woke up and started being active all over again. It took us a while longer to get her to sleep, but this time round, Spud definitely got more sleep and was not as cranky as she was on the flight to Amsterdam. She was also playing quite a bit in her bassinet and seemed to be enjoying herself! I even managed to capture a couple of shots, bassinet and all!

Meanwhile, both Silver Bullet and me were utterly shattered trying to entertain her the whole time. Her energy, like any other normal days, is certainly relentless.

Like the trip to Amsterdam, it would have been a lot worst if not for the prescribed antihistamine handy. So, yes, we “drugged” our child on a long haul flight.

I am aware that our actions may sound selfish. Many would probably disapprove strongly of what we did. However, since it was a prescription drug, it worked for us to some extent in minimisinh her crankiness as well as saving our sanity. This, however, is by no means a measure of our (lack) of parenting skills. My take is, if that is the worse a parent can get, I can deal with that quite easily. Besides, it is not like I am giving my child an unprescribed valium for crying out loud. For us, we did it not only for our sakes. What’s more the child needs her sleep.

And if you have seen evil dagger eyes coming right at us whenever the little imp starts her musical orchestra, I am certain that those passengers were pretty glad we managed to keep Spud down for quite a bit.

I think most were not even thankful, let alone empathetic that we went through hell and back just to keep our child from crying bloody murder…I reckon they expected it.

So, before you make any judgments on sedating a child while on the plane, think of all the distress we saved you as you could easily be the next one on board a plane sitting next to a child who just will not stop crying.

Or maybe, just for the fun of it, we should just fly business class and WITHOUT any antihistamine or any drugs that will potentially make a baby drowsy. For the fun of it, I’d like to see the looks of horror of those lounging in the business section of the plane.

Imagine paying so much money for comfort and only to be sat next to a bawling baby. Beat that!

Good news is that I don’t think we can afford flying on business class.Ever.

Long live Antihistamine!

Holland 2011 : Surviving the flight TO Amsterdam

Category: Baby Milestones

Oh how the flight journey seemed like something from a distant memory now!

To say that it was the worst flight ever would be exaggerating, but I would be a terrible liar to claim that the flight journey went swimming well either. Knowing how Spud will refuse to go down without a fight, I guess it helped that I set my expectations right — I expected nothing pleasant.

In fact, I had wholeheartedly anticipated that Spud will do what Spud does best at cranking it all up to for her parents to bear the brunt of evil, evil stares from the rest of the 200 + fellow passengers on board.

When we found out that there were at least 4 or 5 other babies on the same flight to Amsterdam, we were hoping that somewhere in that sea of passengers therein lies a set of weary parents battling an inconsolable screaming baby throughout out the flight. In the same breath, we were secretly hoping there’d be another child who’d be crankier than Spud, just so that Spud would look better.

Lo and behold! The only screaming baby’s voice we heard was that of Spud’s. A Dutch family who was seated right next to us was travelling with 2 kids and a 10-month old in tow, and I honestly have not seen a baby as calm as the summer sea throughout the journey. There was also not a peep from the other babies and little tots on board.

Perhaps, the only consolation was that she did not scream her guts’ out throughout the entire journey as expected. In fact, she kept herself busy for a good two hours after take-off; amusing herself with the motifs on the wall of her bassinet. She was quite a handful still then, but managed some decent 4 hour sleep IN.THE.BASSINET after dinner was served (and, as a result both Silver Bullet & I managed to catch some winks too). She got cranky when she woke up. For some odd reason too, she suddenly got extremely clingy to me and got super upset when I passed her on to Silver Bullet (this has not happened in a long, long time since she was 3 months old). It was really weird that she did not want anyone (and anything for that matter) but me. So when I had to go pump, Spud was not too happy and started wailing her guts out like she had been tortured.

You should have seen Silver Bullet —pacing up and down the narrow aisle of the plane trying to soothe his cranky daughter who crying at the top of her voice for at least 15 minutes solid! The poor guy was helpless as nothing he did could calm her down. And oh! The looks he got from the fellow passengers…if only eyes could shoot daggers. Only when he passed her on back to me after my pumping session did she calm down. He gave her back to me feeling dreadfully dejected.

Soon after, she managed to take another few hours of sleep (but not without a struggle of course!). She whole-heartedly rejected the bassinet and chose to koala-bear-cling me instead for the several hours which she dozed off. By the time we landed, she was perky, on high alert, but visibly bushed.

The car trip from the airport to the home of my parents-in-law was a little too trying for her since she was confined to the child seat. Just about 10-15 minutes away from their home, she let us know how displeased she was at everything thrown at her that she threw us a major fit.

I can’t quite remember how the day went after that, except that both Spud and I took a very long 1 half hour nap after her morning bath.

Throughout the trip, we ensured that we maintained some of her routines – morning bath, naps, evening wash-downs and bedtime rituals, as well as trying our best to make it as “normal” as we could for her.

For the flight trip itself, it could also have been a lot worst if not for the antihistamine which was prescribed for her cold. It also helped a lot that the KLM’s flight stewardesses were all quite helpful, friendly and almost sympathetic to us travelling parents.

Long live Antihistamine!