Flying with infant

We had two goals for our trip to San Diego over the weekend: 1) to visit Spencer's grandparents and 2) to provide blogging material.

This was Olivia's first plane ride, and was a good lesson for us about travelling with an infant.

Spencer's past has included a few close (and missed) calls at the airport gate. Wanting to avoid the hair raising drive down Hwy 880, the blood pressure raising countdown in the security line, and the sprint to the airport gate, we set a goal of leaving at 6 am for our 8 am flight.

We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare (1 hour and 20 minutes early.) However, upon arriving at the security line we discovered that we needed to register Olivia as a lap baby. That meant standing in a long, slow moving line was crowded with holiday travellers and giant suitcases. We register Olivia and head for the security gate.

Spencer continuing for Joyce:
I found the entire security process with the baby very, ummmm, stimulating? Getting the shoes off and the laptop out of the bag and the bag on the xray thingy is usually a bit exciting, as there is that pressure to keep things moving. Add to that a baby in a car seat, and it gets SUPER exciting. [JL: Add Spencer's overdrive personality and you can see where things get really heated.] I put the entire assembly on the belt and asked the Indian security man if I was to put the seat through the xray machine. His reply? NOT WITH THE BABY!!!!! Uh, yeah, I knew that. I didn't intend to put the baby through. SEAT. I asked about the seat. He looked at me like I was some kind of monster, I prepared myself for the full cavity search I now knew must be coming. Thankfully, with the baby safely out of danger and in my arms, he apparently decided against the cavity search and we went on our merry, overburdened way.

[JL resuming]
I'm using our trip as a test run for a trip I will be taking in February without Spencer. It's my nature to always be looking for ways to optimize systems and processes. The remainder of our outbound flight went pretty smoothly, the baby was quiet and we had plenty of room in the row to pass the baby between us when we needed to move around.

Our return flight was more representative of a long haul commercial flight. The flight was completely booked, so every seat was full. The challenges of flying with an infant became a lot clearer. First of all, modern coach seats are too small for one person, let alone a person with a baby on their lap. The baby transformed me from a 5' tall woman into a 250 lb person with big elbows. It was impossible to do anything without overflowing into the seat next to me. Luckily it was Spencer sitting next to me, not a complete stranger who hates kids.

The inevitable dirty diaper becomes a lot more challenging on a full flight. Since we had someone next to us, we didn't want to change her at the seat. I do my usual and punt to Spencer (taking advantage of Spencer's assurances during the pregnancy that he had done this before and knew what he was doing.) From talking to other mother's, I understand that there are three options for changing a dirty diaper on a plane:

1) At the seat: This worked well on the outbound flight, but we didn't want to gross out the person sitting next to us.
2) On the floor: Since we were flying a small Southwest jet, this wasn't really an option.
3) In the lavatory using the toilet lid as a changing table. This is the grossest option to me. I'd probably let the baby sit in a dirty diaper for two hours before attempting to change a baby in an airplane bathroom.

Turns out that not only has Spencer gone with option #3, but the baby has increased the fun by peeing on him during the changing process.

What did I learn that I might apply to the next flight?
1) Check in really early with an infant.
2) Screw the people in line behind you in security. Take your time so that you can remain calm and collected.
3) Don't bother trying to change the baby in the airplane bathroom. Floor seems like the best option. If no floor is available, I might ask the flight attendants for permission to use their seats.
4) On Southwest, check in online 24 hours before the flight to get the coveted 'Group A' boarding pass. We arrived at the airport 1.5 hours before the flight and still managed to be in the end of Group B (however, parents with children board at the beginning of group B.)
5) Aisle or window? This is a tough one. Aisle might be easiest to get up and down, but window allows privacy and a bit more room for nursing.
6) Wear a nursing top. This seems obvious, but it's been a busy week and all of my nursing shirts were in the laundry.

Wish us luck

Tomorrow we are taking our first plane ride with the little squawker. It's just a short flight (to San Diego,) but wish us luck. Actually, wish luck to the people sitting in the seats around us.

In a completely unrelated tangent, here's a video of the little girl taken yesterday.

L'il Heifer

Some new pictures. Olivia is getting big, she weighed in at 12 lbs this past Sunday. Her additional cushion is a good thing as I returned to work last week and she is not taking to the bottle. Here are some recent pictures of our little heifer in some cute outfits that we received as gifts.

"Thank you to the Yens for this outfit that hides my muffin top"

Week 6: Child Care Conundrum

Olivia is six weeks old, which also marks the end of my maternity leave and return to work. So much for my plan to get back into shape and organize the garage while on maternity leave. Luckily, this will be a short week, followed by two more short weeks at work.

Returning to work necessitated researching child care options. Since I would give our child to pretty much anyone willing to take care of her, I punt to Spencer. Spencer punts back to me by reading listings from Craigslist aloud ... 'Brazilian nanny available, that sounds hot.'

Our ideal situation would be a part time day care center in San Francisco, since we both work in the city. The first facility I phone has a 2.5 year waiting list. Optimism about day care centers in SF dwindles. Scratch that idea.

Next, I speak to a couple nannies and do the math on their rates. Rates seem to be $11-13 hour for nanny share and $15-$18/hr for one-child nanny, which comes out to about $2000-$3000/month. Darn, scratch that idea too.

Then I come up with a brilliant idea. As reported in my sister's guest blogging entry, my mom had semi-joked about being Olivia's nanny and putting the money she charged us back into a bank account for Olivia. We could hire my mom as Olivia's nanny, then charge another family to bring their child to our home for nanny-share. But not tell my mother. Not only would Olivia have a significant college fund, but we'd be able to afford a one week trip to Europe after only 5 months (at the current exchange rates.)

Now that I've blown that plan (in exchange for blogging material,) I'll have to think of a new plan.

Day 34: Suck up

My mom says that in Taiwan, the uncle on the maternal side is an important and influential figure to a child. The maternal uncle is the one who makes decisions in a child's life if the parents disagree. For Spencer and I, that would be all of the decisions.

Olivia apparently didn't get that memo because she seems to be currying favor from her Aunt Margaret. Margaret mentioned several times during her visit that she likes thumbsuckers. As evidenced in the below video, Olivia is working hard to become a thumbsucker.

Day 32-33: Uncle Jim Visits

Days 30 and 31 were pretty uneventful, Olivia was looking kind of green on Wednesday so Spencer suggested that she'd be better off resting at home for a couple days. (Easy for him to recommend, since I was the one staying home.) We got a visit from my brother Jim on days 32-33. The three of us visited my cousins and their daughter Isabella over the weekend. In addition to sleeping through the night, Isabella is a real cutie. We tried to swap the two babies but it's hard to make a clean break when your kid is the noisy, squawky one.

Visiting with my cousin also gave us the opportunity to take family photos with a clean, well decorated house as a backdrop.

Day 29:

I began my experiment with cloth diapers this week. It took me a while to get this experiment going because I couldn't find diaper covers at the baby stores within a 5 mile radius of our home in Berkeley. For as green a town Berkeley is and with as many parents who live there, you'd think they'd sell diaper covers at the 7-11 (maybe they do, I didn't check.)

My interest in cloth diapers stems primarily from the garbage bags full of diapers which we seem to remove from the house daily. I understand that there is concern over the chemicals and bleach used in disposable diapers, but I figure I'm exposing the baby to far more chemicals when we dress her in Made in China flammable clothing.

Most companies recommend buying 6 diaper covers. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on the experiment, so I bought only one cover.

The baby does seem more comfortable wearing a dry cloth diaper than a dry paper one. (A wet diaper may be an entirely different story.)

Cleaning the cloth diaper for a #1 was no big deal, I threw it into a pail of water then later into the laundry machine. Cleaning up after a #2 was a little more work, requiring rinsing the diaper in the toilet, and also cleaning the diaper cover itself in the case where the diaper leaked onto the cover. Having only one diaper cover, I had to wait a day for the cover to dry before going back to cloth. I can see where the recommendation to buy 6 covers comes from.

So far, I think it makes a lot of sense to use cloth diapers, especially during the newborn phase when the diaper changes are frequent (and the #2s are still manageable in volume and stench.)

I'm reading a bit more about cloth diapers online, and have discovered that I can buy diaper covers from the diaper service for $24 for a three pack, vs $12 each at the baby store. I also found out that I should be laundering them in baby friendly detergent as opposed to Dreft.

ABC, a local diaper service, charges $18 per week for 80 diapers. They don't require you to rinse the diaper in the toilet, so that saves a step. (The stench of diapers may lead us to change our mind.) Once I can get my act together to buy some more diaper covers, I'm going to check out this service. There is a 4 week minimum on the service. I'm going back to work in two weeks and not sure how many diapers we'll use. But even if we can use diapers on the evenings and weekends this service may make sense. Stay tuned.

Day 28

Looking back at earlier photos posted on this website, I am reminiscing about the day that our daughter had a neck. Today she weighs 11 lbs according to our bathroom scale. She's almost half the weight of her friend Satyel, who is 18 months old. If she continues growing at this rate, she will be 50 lbs by her first birthday.

Day 27

Or, Day 6 without the assistance of my parents. I thought that parenting would be a lot of pressure, but it's nothing compared to blogging. And even though I make no claims that this blog will be as interesting as 'Edamames in a Pod', there is a compunction to report interesting milestones in the child's growth or development. I have been looking at the pictures from the past three weeks and honestly, they all kind of look the same to me.

My parents left early last Thursday morning. It was nice to have their company at the house, not to mention all of their help with housework, taking care of the baby, and opening free time for me to run errands.

I got my first taste of running errands with a child last week -- I decided to go to a 12:30 meeting. I figured I'd be fine if we left around 11:45. As if timed, 11:40 rolls around and the hour long cycle of crying, feeding, and pooping begins.

The other major change is being responsible for feeding ourselves. Before the baby was born, the standard dinner question was 'Pizza, burritos, or 'fend for yourself' night?' 'Fend for yourself' nights are our version of Iron Chef, with whatever we can find in the kitchen. This usually means fighting Spencer for the last slice of stale sandwich bread.

The weather has also changed dramatically -- it's gone from warm, to cold, to wet and dreary. The lack of sunlight makes it a lot harder to take good pictures (I've been on a 'no flash' kick.) One of the perks of having a baby is the justification to crank the heat up, rather than just putting on a sweater (or in our case, a down jacket and a wool hat.) But with a baby, you can easily justify putting the thermostat on 70 and walking around in summer clothes.

How To Guide

The Art of a Being a Newborn Infant
By Olivia Knight

Other than sleeping, there are three basic steps to being a newborn infant -- eat, poop, and cry. Mastering the art of being a newborn infant requires attention to timing and nuances of the above skills.

Eating: Feed early and often. Milk tastes much better when derived between the hours of 1 am and 4 am. Take advantage of the first few weeks when the nurses have told your parents that your stomach is small and they should feed you on demand. Also take advantage of the fact that your parents haven't bought any books on childhood development and will probably feed you on demand until they learn better (hopefully age 25.)

Pooping: If your parents have been too lazy to use cloth diapers, teach them a lesson about their environmental insensitivity by tripling the volume of diapers they throw into a landfill. Poop immediately after your diaper has been changed, for added effect, poop again after the second (or third) diaper in the same changing session. Diapers come from trees, Mom, and the garbage cans of diapers that you are throwing away won't biodegade for at least 500 years.

Crying: See the section on eating. The nurses and other people have told your mom that infants cry for three reasons -- 1) they're hungry, 2) they've pooped, and 3) they're uncomfortable. If your mom is like mine, she'll usually try feeding first. Especially since she' can't roll a baby swaddle to save her life. Keep them guessing by not crying when you've pooped. And be sure not to fall for the gimmicks the people at the baby store have tried to sell to them -- the sling, the vibrating chair, etc.