Are we having fun yet?

Simon and I recently went for a weekend trip to Seattle with two other couples with kids. In total there were 6 adults, 5 kids, 2 babies all in one house for 3 days. If you ask me how the trip was, I will smile and say, “it was good and we’d do it again for sure” but the experience has also inspired me to make a list of why travelling with young children suck. There were definite times when Simon and I looked at each other and said “I thought vacations were supposed to be fun?” We even started sarcastically saying, “Are we having FUN yet??” throughout the trip when something was not going as planned.  So here goes my 10 reasons why traveling with young children (especially your own) suck.

1.       Packing for a baby and a toddler is ridiculous. For someone so miniscule in size, they require luggage bags packed that weigh 5 times their own weight. Just between the case of diapers and the number of outfits Baby will spit up on before you leave the house, there will only be enough room for your purse, maybe a toothbrush. 

2.       You will never leave the house when you intend to. Toddler will refuse to pee before getting in the car and then after she finally does go, it will take half an hour before you negotiate on a  pair of shoes she wants to wear and that she can actually walk in.  “No you can’t wear mom’s shoes” “No they don’t fit really good” “No, not your rain boots, it’s June” “OK fine, just wear your rain boots and get in the car”

3.       There is a strange phenomenon that occurs once your child is strapped in the car seat, it requires about 30 seconds after you leave your house. Toddler will all of a sudden declare she is SO.SO.HUNGRY and it doesn’t matter that you had to beg her to finish her breakfast a minute ago, she is now beyond famished. Your husband and you will listen to a whiny chorus of “I neeeeeeeeeeeeeed a snack!!!!” before you even reach the first traffic light after leaving your house. 

4.       Another strange phenomenon that occurs on road trips is the way babies have an eerie superpower to detect when you are stuck in traffic or stand-still border waits. As soon as the car stops, even with the engine running and the obligatory white noises sounds of the ocean on, he will detect the situation and wake up from a blissful sleep and make loud, vocal declarations that he must get out of his car seat NOW. The only way to stop the screaming terror for long enough to hear the border guard’s questions is to throw copious amounts of baby MumMum crackers at screaming infant. If you run out of MumMum crackers, experiment with Dorito chips but be warned, Baby may choke on Dorito chips and puke all over car seat. Yes, we know this from experience. 

don't let that cute little face fool you, he's just smiling now b/c he's driving

5.       Cross border shopping with Toddler and Baby is about as easy as getting into your pre-pregnancy pants the day after you give birth. The painful realization that it is not going to happen any time soon. Your only consolation is the package of cheese you got from Target for really, really, cheap! You agonize over not being able to browse the racks at Ross and eat cheap American cheese. 

6.       Unrelated to traveling with children but the streets in Seattle are seriously messed up. None of them go straight or connect where you think they should. The GPS thinks our truck can make left turns into oncoming traffic and most of the time you can’t even hear what GPS-Lady was saying because of Crying Infant who again, detected the stop and go Seattle traffic and needed to be released from car seat hell NOW.

7.       Going out to a nice restaurant by the water requires expensive parking. This is easier said than done when none of the machines accept Canadian credit cards. Briefly consider using our adorable children to panhandle for change until we remember that we got cash back at Target. (Wife briefly gloats about how amazing she is for getting cash back)

happy after figuring how to pay for parking spot and finally getting some supper

8.       It may be easier to convince Toddler to eat kale than getting Baby to sleep in a play pen set up in a walk-in closet of the rental house. Regular bedtime is 7:30pm, Baby finally gave up standing up and screaming at 9:10pm. Administration of Tylonel at 8:45pm and desperate prayers required.  Naps not any easier. After 60 minutes of wailing, waved white flag of surrender and walked baby in stroller for nap instead. 

9.       Stressful scenarios like screaming non-napping babies, demanding toddlers that do not have their listening ears on, traffic jams and streets that don’t go straight have a toll on loving communication between couples. Wife may have used a voice at a louder than necessary decibel in one or more of the above stressful situations. However, to wife’s credit, she did apologize after Baby stopped screaming and finally gave in to the sleep fairy. Husband and Wife back on same team to tackle next whining or crying challenge. 

10.   Vacations are supposed to be fun and relaxing. Unless you bring your children.  Then they are not.

OK so why do we, as parents, do this???

Because when there are moments of wonderful awe-filled goodness when Toddler reads books quiety in the car. When Toddler is playing so nicely with her friends at the rental house. When the girls without prompting, are having a tea party with their Polly Pocket dolls or twirling mightily to “Let it go!!!!”. When they squeal with delight at the sight of a giraffe or monkey at the zoo. When B

aby gets right up to the glass of a jaguar pacing back and forth. When the kids are frolicking at the park and picking wild flowers and insist of getting a bouquet of weeds for mom. The spontaneous laughs, giggles and smiles and memories they will have.

Simon and Natallie pretending to be penguins, of course.

all 5 kids happy at the same time. miracle, i know. 

 

 

frolicking at Gas Works park

crazy monkey

more crazy  monkeys

Was it an insane nut-show ? Yes, yes it was.

Would we do it again?

Don’t ask me right now, it’s still too soon.

By next week, I’ll probably say yes. 

a run for the record books.

A Neufeld feat this weekend. All of us competed in a race. Thank you to everyone who donated to the Run for H20, with your support Natallie raised $825 for families in Guatemala! She did great at the 50m Toddler Dash, she ran straight towards the finish line and had so much fun she ran back and forth from start to finish about a dozen times. Next year, we'll be signing her up for the 1km Kids Run for sure.

warm up run and of course every running princess needs a tiara

carbo-loading before the race

Simon entertaining the kids with big bubbles before the race

can you spot Natallie on the left side?

running the 50m again

and again!

They even let Noah register for the Toddler Dash and we put a race bib on him and let him 'worm' his way across the field. He was distracted by crowd of people taking pictures of him and veered of course and never crossed the finish line. Rookie. Need to teach him to focus on the goal.

More than just a chubby face, let me race!

race bib on and ready to rocket

Go Noah Go!

Distracted and disqualified

Never finished the 50m dash but love him anyways

                                                 * **

Saturday night I barely got any sleep because I was so anxious about running the Scotia half marathon on Sunday morning. It has been exactly 2 years ago when I last ran this race and Natallie was 11 months old. Fast forward two years and now 9 months post-baby #2, I started thinking that it was kind of ridiculous to think I could do this. But I dismissed my negative self-talk and starting thinking of how hard I did try to train for this, all the nights that after putting the kids down when I just wanted to collapse on the couch (or at least fold laundry while watching TV), I laced up my runners and went for a run or the mornings after being up at 2am and 4am that I did get out there and practice.

And this time I had convinced Simon to do it. Simon says he hates running but somehow the lure of a shiny medal to hang up was enough to get him to say yes to 21.1km at 7:30am on a Sunday morning.

The juxtaposition between jittery nerves and excitement helped ward off how insane it was that our alarm went off at 5:15am and we were at UBC by 6:30am.

looking as chipper as we can for getting up waaaay too early

All that practice pushing a 20lbs baby in a 25 lb jogging stroller up Royal Oak (i.e., the steepest hill in Burnaby) paid off! To my absolute amazement, I was able to finish the race faster than I did it two years ago. My time to beat was 1:52:50 and this year I finished the 21.1km in 1:51:19.  At the 10km mark I was at 50 minutes, that's faster than I've ever done the 10km Sun Run before. 

got our medals!

Simon went into beast mode too. He stomped 10km in 47 minutes and finished the race in an impressive 1:49:01. Proud of you superdad!

so proud of this guy

 A weekend of runs for the record books.
 Natallie's and Noah's first race. Check!
Simon's first half-marathon. Check!
A new personal best half-marathon time. Check!

And now you'll have to excuse me because my legs don't work anymore.

Toddler-made, Daddy-approved

Natallie's present for Simon this past Father's Day was totally awesome, inspired by this pin I got off Pinterest.


So easy your toddler can do it.


Step 1: get a T-shirt, fabric paint and masking tape.

Step 2: choose a sweet logo that won't drive you crazy trying to cut out.

Step 3: use masking tape to cover up sections of the shirt that you don't want paint to show up on.

Step 4: give your toddler paint and tell them to go crazy

Step 5: try to stop the crazy when the entire bottle of paint is on the T-shirt

Step 6: let the paint dry overnight and then remove the masking tape.

Step 7: Viola. the best toddler-made, daddy approved shirt you can ever get.

Simon said he'll be wearing it every week at hockey.

Natallie is so pleased Daddy is wearing the shirt she painted.

SCORE.

milk carton kid

It was Mother's Day just a few weeks ago. It was a perfect picnic. We were all eating sushi and cake at Central park. I was preoccupied with feeding Noah in his stroller. Simon was playing with special effects on the camera. My sister was talking to my parents about her upcoming move and the craziness going on at work and then all of a sudden Simon says, "Where's Natallie?"  I look up. I don't see her anywhere. I drop the spoonful of mashed potatoes and start running around our picnic table calling her name. My heart starts beating a million times faster. I instantly start thinking the worst, "Oh no, she's gone. Someone has taken her. On Mother's Day. Oh no. Oh God no."

Simon took this picture right before she wandered off

We ran to nearby picnic tables calling her name. I ask a few people if they've seen a little girl with curly brown hair. I start thinking of missing kids on a milk carton (they probably don't do that anymore but you don't think rational thoughts when you're brain is in panic mode).

Then finally, after only a few minutes (although they were horrible, panic stricken minutes), I hear Simon yell, "I GOT HER!"


Thank you Jesus.


Simon was able to think more rationally and decided to check the playground which was sort of in view from our picnic area but still a fairly far distance away from where we were. She was happily climbing up to the slide when Simon found her. Not a clue that everyone else was having severe heart palpitations and speeding up the greying hair process.

ran away to this slide

Anyways, after that incident I have tried really hard to explain to her that she can't wander off but if she ever were to get separated from me, would she be able to tell people her name or my name or anything that would help her get back to me?  She still gets mixed up with her name and how old she is. When people ask, "What's your name?"  she proudly hold up two pudgy toddler fingers and exclaims, "TWO!!!!"

"What's your name?" "TWO!!!"

So I started to do some research into what would be the most durable form of child ID in case she ever got lost again. Ideally, I would like to implant a GPS device in her that would also detect trouble and instantly pepper spray bad people (and maybe mean dogs too) or maybe some sort of protective shield could pop up or give her super powers. But a device like that is not yet on the market so in the meantime while some Dragon Den entrepreneur is working on that idea, I have got these awesome ID bracelets for both kids (not that Noah is going very far these days but if he's anything like his sister, he will learn to go from walking to sprinting away very quickly).

I wanted something durable and kid-proof and essentially have them never, ever take it off until they are 19 and move out. It's a slim silicone band and laser engraved with their name and both mom and dad's phone number. The company actually makes most of the bands for elite athletes like marathoners and cyclist that could be injured while on the road but "wrist ID slim" in XS fits even Noah.

So all I can continue to do is pray each day that God keeps my precious babies safe and urge someone to make a GPS device that kids can wear all the time and also has function where fire breathing dragons are emitted if they are ever in trouble. 

10 steps to our DIY Sand Table

1. Convince your husband that Pinterest in not only for the female population (lure him by typing in "Lego" or "Hot wheels" into Pinterest)

2. After husband is thoroughly immersed in Pinterest, type in DIY Sandbox and show him what other dads have done for their kids. Really cool ideas like these:

3. Affirm your husband's woodworking talents. Offer to help by baking cookies to fuel creative energy. 

4.Give husband blank sheet of paper to plan his masterpiece. Nod your head as he explains what he is going to do even if you have no idea what he means. Smile encouragingly.

5. Get cheap coffee table, wood and paint for $25.

6. Let husband work magic in the garage.

7. Offer more baked goods.

8. Paint. Let dry. Paint. Let dry. Paint. Let dry.

 9. Apply super cool Monsters Inc. decals

10. Fill with 100 lbs of sand and lots of toys. Watch daughter's eyes light up as she wakes up from nap time to see this outside her bedroom window. 

Best. Dad. Ever.

Notice the custom-made bubble holders?

Tip:  Remember to put lid on so neighbor's cat does not compromise contents of sandbox.

Now, THAT is one awesome sand table.

Who wants to come over and play?

P.S. If you actually want to know how to make this sand table, you'll have to ask Simon. My only contribution to this was picking out the stickers. Oh and of course, baking cookies. Without the proper sustenance, this table would have never happened.

you only get today once.

I am a first born. Apparently Type A. Goal-oriented, conscientious, controlling, multi-tasker and have high expectations of myself and others. I like order. I like predictability. Schedules and routines make me happy. I need control. I analyze behaviour and make plans to change and control them for a living. Really.

My 6 month old baby is well, a baby. When he is awake, he is usually cheerful, giggly, curious and drooling. He is adorable but he is not predictable.

 I need to leave the house, he poops up to his armpits.
I want him to take the bottle, he refuses. I buy every bottle that other moms said worked for their baby, he still refuses. Maybe I can start growing plants in my collection of bottles.
I want him to nurse. He rather suck on his toes instead.
I need him to take a long nap, he is wide awake after 10 minutes...it's more like a long blink than a nap.
I crave a long uninterrupted night of sleep. He wants to nurse all night.
I wish I could sleep in. He doesn't want to miss a sunrise.

I have had an epiphany. It was about a week or so ago. I was in tears. I wanted Noah to fall asleep on his own. He wanted to nurse and snore in my arms. I didn't let him fall asleep and put him in his crib awake and apparently really mad. I was listening to him wail and feeling like the wicked witch of the west. I wanted to go pick him up but that was against The Plan. The Plan said let him cry, go in after 15 minutes and pat him for 2 minutes and then leave. Then listen to him wail for 20 minutes and think about how this is for his own good.  The Plan said it is just a simple case of extinguishing an undesired behaviour.

My dear husband could tell this was agonizing for me and said ever so eloquently, "He's not a lab rat or a case study. He's just a freaking baby. He doesn't need a behaviour analyst right now, he just needs his mom"

And something clicked for me. Yes, he is a baby. He's my baby. He's my gift from God and I get to be his mommy. He is not a client in need of a behaviour plan. He is a baby in need of a cuddles and kisses and right now middle of the night and early morning feedings when I wish I was sleeping. I realize that there are many circumstances of motherhood that I can't control. And believe me, I tried so, so, so hard to control them. Again and again, I was unable to make my baby do what I wanted when I wanted that the joy in being his mom had vanished. This is not OK.

 You only get this day once. My baby will never fit into his newborn clothes again, he doesn't sleep for hours on my chest anymore. He will only be 6 months old for a few more weeks. I will read this in a year and only have memories of what it was like to have a 2.5 year old toddler and a 6 month old. I want those memories to be cherished ones.
Today will never happen again. I can't go back and wish I was more patient, more spontaneous, more care-free and less neurotic. You only get today once.

I'm going to go cuddle my kids and make this a good day.

Operation Noah Recovery: day 4

Dear Noah

It has been one crazy week. You sister had to go to the doctor last Thursday after 10 days of amoxicillin to make sure she was getting over her viral illness. That day you had a little cough but you were still smiling and happy and she said, "Oh, he will get worse before gets better. I bet you will be seeing me with him next week". Oh wow, did she ever predict it.

your sister at the doctor

On Saturday you woke up with green goop going out of your eyes and your cough was worsening. You were up all night and Dad watched Team Canada win gold over while he was trying to soothe your sickly cough at 4:30am. By 7:00am you also had a fever, we were really worried and I took you into the ER at RCH where you were born.

admitted at RCH

They gave you a Ventolin steam mask to help you breathe better and did a chest X ray but the results from the Xray were inconclusive for penumonia. They gave us a Venotin chamber to continue to use at home and said you were OK to go home.  I thought the worst was over.

horrifying X chest machine

On Monday, you started to nurse less and cough more. You vomitted everything that went in your mouth. Your fever kept on coming back. We were getting more and more worried. You slept through the night and didn't wake up for feeds. This is so unlike you.

breaking our hearts to see you so sick

On Tuesday morning, you were very lethargic and any trace of "Noah" had left your eyes. We tried feeding you milk with a syringe. I cried. Tuesday afternoon after over 24 hours of no nursing I took you to Children's hospital. Right after we were assessed, your body crashed. It went from waiting in a room with just me and you to crazy commotion in the room, doctors, nurses, IVs, antibiotics, X rays and a doctor telling us in his calm doctor voice that they were "very concerned" for you. I cried.

The doctor came in and told us you have pneumonia and maybe other horrible things. Then we got moved upstairs. For the next several days, I stayed beside your bed as you endured daily blood work and machines kept monitoring your heart rate, your oxygen intake and an IV worked to reverse the process of dehydration. 

Everyone and I mean everyone prayed for you. 

our ticket outta here!

Today is Saturday. Today is a glorious, joyous day because the doctor weighed you this morning and you have gained weight. You have not had a fever for 2 days. You have not puked for 2 days. You have started nursing since removal of the IV. Your lungs aren't perfect yet but the doctor said you are taking in enough air on your own and keeping medicine down so this means we can go home today!!!

Noah you are so loved. You probably won't remember this entire ordeal but we will. Know that you are much, much loved. Not just by your mom and dad but also your Heavenly Father. He has blessed us with outstanding family and friends that prayed unceasingly. 

We love you so much Noah. 

Come on, let's go home!