Vacation and a Wedding

Posted on July 26, 2012 by vanderbiltwife

Despite the crazy circumstances leading up to our vacation/wedding trip to the Outer Banks, I think I can file it away in my memory as pretty fabulous.

I got to see my little ones see the ocean for the first time, to dip their toes in the water and dig up sand with their hands and shovels. Libbie got great kicks out of waiting by the water until the wave rolled in and then scurrying away from it up the beach. Her leg muscles are obviously in much better shape than mine!

I always enjoy seeing my parents and my sister love on the kiddos. The kids love it, too! They adore Nana, Poppy, and “Ashy-Roo.”

I was amazed at how much Libbie loved exploring the historical Roanoke Island site we went to. I wasn’t sure I would be able to drag her off the ship!

And to top it off, I got to be in the wedding of my very best friend, my soul sister, and get reacquainted with friends from college. We’ve vowed to not let it be so long between visits the next time!

Somehow, I have no pictures of me in my bridesmaid’s dress! I thought it was quite pretty and I loved my hair and make-up.

This week we’ve been in recovery mode, I think, from all the travel and moving. I am flat-out exhausted. As soon as I pull this apartment into shape, though, I’ll share pictures – especially of Libbie’s precious pink butterfly room.

Doing Disney with a Toddler and Baby: The Magic Kingdom

Posted on July 20, 2011 by vanderbiltwife

If you want a Disney World expert … you should probably ask the Disney Moms Panel.

If you want the opinion of a crazy mom who trekked around Disney World in the raging June heat with a 2-year-old who is scared of birds and a nursing 6-month-old … you’ve come to the right place!

My first disclaimer and tip: BRING HELP! Yes, we had two small children. But we also had five adults (me, my husband, my sister, and my parents). Several days, some of the adults took the kids home early for naps/down time.

Which brings us to number two: be flexible. This is not going to be the Disney trip you took when you were a teen and could go from 8 a.m. to midnight without batting an eye. Don’t kill your kids trying to see everything. Have fun, make memories, and allow for rest.

That said, here’s what we did on day 1 of our trip.

The Magic Kingdom with a (FEARFUL) Toddler and a Baby

I was horrified of going to Disney with Libbie (32 months at the time of our trip). A few days before we left I took her to the Creative Discovery Museum and she would not leave my arms for fear of a Bob the Builder exhibit. A few weeks before that, we went to Chick-Fil-A and they had people dressed as the cows. She climbed on my husband’s head, in hysterics, trying to distance herself from them.

Libbie did 3,000 times better than I thought she would at Disney World. She didn’t love the characters, but she didn’t freak out over them. She didn’t always want to go on every ride, but once she did she would usually proclaim that she loved it. Never did we have to drag her on anything with her crying or hysterical.

I think we can attribute part of this to several weeks of her obsessing over Disney World for Kids, a book that let her see pictures of many of the rides. We also watched YouTube videos of some of the rides. This seriously helped her comfort level.

Dumbo: We headed to Dumbo first thing since it’s a slow and busy attraction. Libbie adored it. We had to wait about 25 minutes, but it was worth it to see her in awe of the ride! David (6 months) sat this one out.

Peter Pan’s Flight: Libbie’s never seen the Disney version of Peter Pan, but she seemed to like the flying boats. Just the other day she was telling me about the crocodile that had a person in its mouth! It’s a little dark but did not seem to bother her. David rode in a lap and loved looking at everything (his general state of being).

Mickey’s PhilHarmagic: This is a newer attraction. It’s a 3D movie featuring Donald Duck chasing Mickey’s hat through many of the Disney films. The adults loved it: it was cool in the theater, the music and animations were fun, and it was a perfect place to nurse the baby. Libbie hated it; she was scared by the 3D effects and the ultimate travesty was performed when Donald Duck “splashed her.” (They spray you with water at one point during the show.) I think she will be forever prejudiced against Donald Duck. If you ask her about it, she will tell you she told him, “WE ARE ALL DONE, DONALD DUCK!” (Which, of course, she didn’t. She just cried.)

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: Libbie loves Pooh, and she had a grand old time seeing all the Pooh characters. She liked bouncing with Tigger. The Heffalumps and Woozles part may be slightly scary, but it didn’t seem to bother her. She really enjoyed visiting Pooh’s house and the little play area they have there as well.

It’s a Small World: Libbie definitely liked this one. She wanted to go on it again, but we didn’t make it back there. David slept through it in his aunt’s arms.

Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin: Libbie is too young for this kind of arcade ride, but she didn’t mind tagging along to see her beloved Toy Story characters. She had a very nice score of “0.” David enjoyed a spin in the stroller with his Nana while the rest of us rode. The adults enjoyed the ride, although it pales in comparison to the newer Toy Story Mania at Hollywood Studios.

Carousel: Libbie got her princess vibe on by riding a pony around the carousel with her grandparents (while mom, dad, and auntie took David to Hall of Presidents to nurse and cool off). I wasn’t there, but from her huge grin in the pictures I would say she enjoyed it immensely.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Well, hm. I hadn’t been on this ride since they changed it to go along with the movies. It was a lot scarier than I recalled. Libbie didn’t make a peep; I think she was so scared that she didn’t cry! (Also, it was toward the middle of the afternoon and she was very tired.) She cuddled up pretty close to me, though. I wouldn’t recommend it for kids as young as she is.

We ate lunch at Cosmic Ray’s in Tomorrrowland. I think Libbie had chicken nuggets, which she has little interest in, apple juice, and carrot sticks. (The kids’ side choices are carrot sticks and grapes, neither of which Madame Pickypants will eat. But Daddy ate her carrots.)

I had the turkey bacon wrap with french fries, which could easily feed at least two people.

For the Big Kids

My mom and dad took Libbie and David back to our rental house to nap and play in the pool, and my sister, husband, and I stayed to do some of the big-kid things. We rode Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which Libbie was not tall enough to ride, nor would she probably want to. We went to the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor show, which I think Libbie would have liked just fine.

We also went on the Haunted Mansion. This is one of the rides I had been saying, “Oh, Libbie has no concept of ghosts, it wouldn’t be scary to her.” But I am SO GLAD she didn’t ride it. First of all, when they are leading you to the ride they show a “corpse” hanging from the ceiling. Then we got stuck for a good 10 minutes in one of the rooms. I don’t know that she would have minded the rest of the ride too too much, but being stuck would have made her insane. But especially because of the first scene, I would NOT recommend this for young children at all.

I am going to do a round-up of the best places to nurse a baby in Disney World on a separate post, but for now, here’s where I nursed David in the Magic Kingdom:

PhilHarmagic – dark, cool
Hall of Presidents – dark, cool

Also: Animal Kingdom with a Toddler and a Baby

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Flying with Baby–Rants and a Few Tips

Posted on March 14, 2009 by vanderbiltwife

I found the hardest part of flying alone with the baby was trying to go to the bathroom. The handicapped bathrooms in the airport are barely big enough to squeeze my (very small) stroller into and still be able to go. And on the plane? Are you kidding? I had to hand her off to a friendly flight attendant so I could attend to Nature’s call.

The worst moment for me was in Norfolk (ORF–I hope you find this and reprimand your security people). They make you put the stroller and carseat through the conveyor belt along with everything else except the baby. I tried and tried to disconnect my carseat from the stroller, then get the stroller collapsed, while approximately 10 security people stood and looked at me. I was the ONLY person going through the line. I had to PUT THE BABY ON THE FLOOR, y’all, to get it closed. And they let me. (In Nashville, several kind men did it all for me. I love the South.) When my mom called minutes later, I just burst into tears.

To board the plane, I’d put Libbie in the sling, close the stroller, and then lug the stroller, carseat, diaper bag, and my bag to the entrance–while trying not to drop the baby out of the sling. People were kind enough to help me most of the time, but it was still a struggle. My first flight, where I was allowed to bring on the carseat since it wasn’t full, I ended up playing musical chairs because I didn’t know the carseat had to go by the window, then they had to check it to make sure it was airplane-safe.

I’d read often that nursing at take-off and descent would help the baby from having her ears hurt. Well, those parts didn’t bother her in the least. It was the part in the middle she didn’t like. And when I tried to nurse her, I was so uncomfortable and she was so mad she absolutely refused.

It was one heck of a trip.

Here’s what I’ve learned for the next time I fly with her (which, ack, is in less than two weeks!):

1. I will keep her in the sling to go through security instead of wrestling her in and out of the stroller. I’m tempted to not take the stroller at all, but I know my parents want to do some outdoors things with her when we’re in PA.

2. I will bring bottles of pumped milk to give her on the plane if she gets upset. I am too uncomfortable nursing in public. I am so afraid I am going to flash someone completely (I’m really not worried about being embarrassed, but I don’t want to make other people way uncomfortable), and Libbie tends to throw off any cover I put on her. Plus she latches on and off constantly, making it even more difficult. (Note: you can bring a “reasonable amount” of breast milk or formula through security onto the plane, as long as you tell them and put it in a separate bucket to go through the scanner.)

3. I will wish I had a portable DVD player to occupy her, but I won’t buy one, because I am cheap.

4. I will stick with the same amount of bags–anything more than her diaper bag and my purse would have put me over the edge.

Southwest, by the way, was great. They checked on me a ton, helped me if I needed it, and said flight attendant even lovingly attended to the baby while I peed (and it was a man). I will never fly anyone else if I can help it. I love them.

Khao Lak

Posted on March 22, 2008 by vanderbiltwife

Two years ago this week, I left the good old US of A for Thailand. It was something that completely fell into my lap. I have always, always wanted to go to Thailand–since I was in fifth grade. That year, as part of GAs (Girls in Action…kids’ mission-education group they have in SBC churches) I wrote to missionaries who lived in Bangkok. I just picked them out of the Foreign Mission Board directory and wrote. Unlike most of the missionaries my fellow GAs wrote, mine wrote me back!

We ended up writing back and forth for many years. When they went on furlough, my family and theirs actually met at the Missionary Training Center in Richmond. I still have a scrapbook of all of their letters. It was a huge influence on my life, really. I still have a pretty big drive to do foreign missions.

So, back to this trip. I think they ran in the bulletin at church for one week that this trip was going to happen, and the cost was unbelievably low. It was supposed to be in November 2005. I asked about it, I applied, and although the November trip was full, I was added to a trip the next March, 2006.

The purpose of the trip was tsunami relief. I’m sure you remember the devestating tsunami in December 2004. When I applied for this trip, it was April or so after that, soon after relief starting pouring into Southeast Asia. By the time I got there in March 2006, relief had seriously trickled off. We Westerners do have rather short memories for bad things and the emotions you undergo right after they happen. The Thai people we worked with could not believe Christians were still willing to come to help them.

My team was so awesome; I got to be very good friends with two ladies, Marian and Deb, who are sisters, and a man named David. We trekked down to the market together, ate squid, played games, and worked our tails off in 100+ degree weather every day. I have never been anywhere else so sufficatingly hot. Being that close to the equator is just insane. Being out in the sun for 15 minutes is enough to make you pass out.

I am so glad I had the opportunity to go on this trip and to get to meet the people I met, both the Thai people and the Americans I went with and the missionaries that lived in Khao Lak.

It almost seems like a dream now, as I find most of my travels do. When I am living my everyday life, nauseated, tired, watching March Madness, it is hard to believe I am the same person who took classes in Chinese, rode an elephant in Thailand, and had lunch with a sheik in Brazil. Most days I honestly can’t believe I’ve had such amazing opportunities when I am such a boring person!

I long for that post-trip feeling, though, of appreciation for my “normal” life. Most days I find myself so wrapped up in housekeeping, making dinners, watching TV shows, and so on. Things that have no importance whatsoever. What matters is relationships, whenever and wherever they are formed, and how these relationships tie into Jesus.