Kerala has had somewhat of a rough past week. As you can see by the July photos, she had a bit of an accident that left a horrible mark on her face. She fell at the pool and got a cement burn. Fortunately, it has significantly faded since it happened last Wednesday. I am still a bit worried about scarring - particularly, since two parents totally freaked me out about the possibility of scarring. Don't people know that I am a paranoid mother? Anyway, we spoke to the nurse at Kerala's pediatrician last Wednesday and she said that it most likely wouldn't scar because Kerala's skin is so young. I have been trying to have Kerala avoid a lot of sun to minimize the possibility of scarring.
Kerala also has had a horrible time sleeping lately. Kerala used to sleep about 11 hours at night and then a 3 hour nap during the afternoon. For the past two weeks, she seems to be pushing her nap back so that she was consistently going down at 1:30 rather than her normal 1:00. This past weekend, she went down at 3:00 and then 2:30 which is not ideal. Today, she did not take a nap. Every time I would go into her room she would look up at me and say "hi!" We finally gave up on the nap, but on our way home from dropping Troy off at his hotel for the bar exam she fell asleep. I ran into a mom in the neighborhood that I regularly talk to and she told me that her son does the same thing whenever he is teething. It seems like Kerala is getting two new teeth, so hopefully our sleep troubles will go away. All, I know is I am exhausted - I usually use Kerala's nap time on the weekends to catch up on my own sleep. It's been rough.
As far as some positive news about Kerala, she still is developing a vocabulary. The latest three words that I can recall her adding are hose, pool, and door. She is also really funny with saying "hi" and "bye-bye." We will walk around the neighborhood and she will waive at people and say "bye-bye." Last week, she kept taking my cell phone and our home phone and taking into it - every few seconds she would say "hi" into it. Kerala is also pretty funny with her stuffed animals. She consistently tries to share her milk with her duck and the other day I gave Kerala some cheese that she tried to feed her duck and would say "mmmm" when the duck was "eating" the cheese. She also likes to try to diaper her stuffed cat, but she hasn't quite figured out the cloth diapering system. Although she does know that you need a liner, a shell and some rice paper which is pretty funny.
For a family update, Troy is off to take the bar exam. He has been studying really hard and I can't wait for this to be over for him. So everyone keep Troy in your thoughts tomorrow and Wednesday. For me, my most exciting news is that I am officially reduced hours at work. Generally, this means that I don't go into the office on Mondays. It's been great to have another day with Kerala at home. Finally, Kerala will be going on her first plane trip this month. If anyone has any advice on how to get a toddler through a 3 1/2 hour flight, I would love to hear it.
2 comments:
Best of luck to Troy on the bar exam!
Julie and I took Jonah to Atlanta last month on a plane for his first plane trip. It was about a two-hour flight and we were sort of nervous about it.
The first thing is probably pretty obvious, but bears repeating: Get to the airport as early as possible. You'll most likely be lugging tons of crap with you which will slow you down, plus you'll want time for everyone to go to the bathroom, have something to eat, etc. It might also be helpful to give her some time to run around and expend some energy before being cooped up in a plane for hours on end.
During takeoff, we fed Jonah a bottle to keep his ears from popping, which seemed to work pretty well.
The hardest thing was mainly to keep him occupied. I assume that Kerala will not have her own seat, so while one person is holding her, the other person should be entertaining her somehow.
Definitely pull out out some food and toys and books and keep them handy (like in the magazine slip in the back of the seats) to cut off meltdowns before they start. Also, if you can time it so that the plane ride corresponds with nap-time, that also helps. Maybe she will sleep the whole way.
Other than that, there isn't much you can do except mentally prepare yourself for a long day. Even if she's well-behaved (which Jonah was for the most part, thankfully), it is still going to be exhausting; there really isn't a way around it.
Just try to keep your sense of humor and tell yourself that people do this all the time, sometimes with only one parent, so things could be worse.
I found a Yahoo! Answers page that provides additional tips on flying with an infant/toddler. Maybe you'll find it useful!
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