Summer Time is Travel Time

It's summer time and it goes without saying that family trips are also here. For first time parents like us, travelling with a toddler could be a great challenge. Not that we have been travelling, but I've been thinking about it and thought about ways of how we'll manage when the time comes.

Just recently, we were able to travel and visit my parents in Nueva Ecija. It's usually a 3-4-hour-drive from Manila via NLEX, but it seemed like everybody was headed the same way. It took as 6 hours. Our fambam's first time to travel with Ava the toddler that long.

Luckily, our little happy belle didn't seem to bother the long drive. And it also helped that we brought some stuff that kept her busy.


Here's my take on what you can do while travelling with your toddler:

Carseats

The use of carseats in our country is not as strict compared to others. I am also guilty of this, most of the time, we're good with Ava just sitting on my lap either in the front passenger seat or at the back. But I think we should all practice safe travelling especially when we are with our children. Make sure they are all buckled up comfortable and secured. Unlucky for us, we just realized that our darling daughter already outgrew her infant car seat. So we had to take her out from it and just settle at the backseat while Mr. T drove carefully. That's why we're already looking at getting front-facing carseats so the next time we go for a long drive, Ava is already safely buckled up. :)

Left: Ava in her infant car seat. Right: Britax Front-Facing Car Seat.

The Hashtag Project

This is just the perfect entry for today because it's a #ThrowbackThrusday kind of thing. :)

I recently ordered an Instabook from Imagesmith. It's a book of your pictures gathered from your own Instagram gallery. For my first Instabook, I chose photos of Ava from her first year. And here's how the book turned out.

If you'd like to make something out of your Instagram gallery, then I would say go for an Instabook. ;)

Baby's Safety Online

This has been an on-going topic amongst parents and it seems like it's going to continue along with the evolving virtual world of social media internet. And ever since our very own little belle entered toddlerhood, this has become a part of our discussion as parents as well.

Amongst the articles I've read discussing/debating this issue, I've come across two questions that are always being asked. (1) Are you violating your own child's right to privacy? (2) Is it safe to post photos of your child?

And these are my takes.

(1) Violation of my child's privacy. This sounds silly to me, trying to imagine my toddler, who can't even control her bladder yet, invoking the right to control her own photos.

"The violation of personal privacy doesn’t start until an individual has the ability to understand what the violation means." - New York Times

Makes a lot of sense to me. That's why it becomes part of our many responsibilities as parents -  to make sure that our children are safe and protected - whenever, wherever. For me, bum-naked is already a violation of my child's privacy. I once posted a photo of her right after birth, blurred out except for her face. But eventually took it down after a while because I find it too much for sharing. The context of how photos are being shared should also be considered.

(2) Safety of my child. This one I find a bit too much.

“Research shows that there is virtually no risk of pedophiles coming to get kids because they found them online,” said Stephen Balkam, chief executive of the Family Online Safety Institute. While the debate makes this crime seem common, he said, all the talk is really just “techno-panic.”

Exactly my point. Of course protecting children from dangerous people should be a concern to all parents. However, these people are more likely to target children they know and who trust them already, instead of those they have only seen on the Internet.

Little Miss Audrey

Mr. T's company usually hosts a Trick or Treat party for the family of their employees. Last year, we were still pregnant with Ava so Mr. T was on the other side of the party, giving out treats to children. And that time, I remember him telling me how he'll bring our baby to next year's trick or treat. Which is this year! :)

He reminded me about the party a couple of weeks earlier and that's when we started looking for costumes. The DIY Mama started Pinteresting and stumbled upon a lot of really cute costumes. But the problem was, Ava can't walk yet. And most of the costumes look nice if the baby's walking already. So it came down to one, The Baby Octopus.

Photo from Mom Inc Daily

We were all set for this so I listed down the stuff we need. A few days before the party we went to SM to buy everything we need. We already had everything, but I couldn't find a black onesie to complete the costume. I needed to think of a plan B, quickly because the OC/Stage Mama in me won't settle for something na pinagpwede na. Either we get all the stuff I need acording to plan or ditch the whole thing and go to/think of a Plan B which was exactly what we did. So little Baby Octopus became Little Miss Audrey.

100 Days of BLW

Baby Led Weaning (BLW) is defined as:

Quite simply, means letting your child feed themselves from the very start of weaning.
* re ‘wean’. This is meant in the Brit sense, not the American. In the UK, ‘weaning’ means ‘adding complementary foods’, whereas in the States it means ‘giving up breastfeeding’.

I learned about BLW during one of the breastfeeding meetups we attended earlier this year. A was just around three months then. Then I started reading about it and introduced it to Mr. T as well. After reading articles, watching videos and more, I was finally ready and confident enough to do it. Yes, I had to build my confidence level and had to learn the difference between choking and gagging.

And as A turned six months on May 1 of this year, we started our BLW journey.

Our little foodie in training. Her first solid food - avocado. No, she didn't eat cake. Lol.

The World Stops..

..when your child gets sick. Well at least that's what I thought, because mine did.

I came home to a feverish A last night. It was not her first time actually, because during her 4th monthly checkup, she reacted to her vaccine with a very low-grade fever. In less than 24 hours, she was back to her normal self. But this time was different.

She was holding on to me, telling me something's wrong. 

I was trying to convince myself that it was just like the first time and A will just shrug it off once again. But my little nursling was telling me something else. She was just nursing quietly, holding on to me. No acrobatics, no wrestling. She'd fall asleep but quickly wakes up at the slightest move I make. We monitored her temperature round the clock and it went from 36.7°C up to 38.3°C. It was still a low-grade fever but I knew that something else was going on. It was a long night and I was constantly reminding myself not to message A's pedia in the middle of the night and wait till morning instead. She advised us to keep monitoring and bring A in for her to see should she become uninterested or totally stopped nursing. But my little nursling didn't slow down, but her temperature went up to 39°C. It was then that we decided to bring her in.

The Invisible Mother

Becoming a mother can be exhausting, daunting and challenging all at the same time. But I love being one because the rewards are more than enough to compensate me. Just one smile from my little belle and all the exhaustion go away. Just one look of approval and all my anxieties disappear. And by just seeing her grow into a beautiful person, day by day, assures me that I've overcome my challenges from yesterday.

People will only see the surface of how you are as a mother. They won't know the little big things that we do. Unless they (1) are with you every second of the day, or (2) they become mothers themselves. But I'd like to think that one day, when someone sees my little belle all grownup, someone will come up to me and say, "Hey, you did a fantastic job!"

I guess it's a universal feeling shared by mothers everywhere. Just like this story I am sharing. I'm pretty sure we can all relate in one or another.

One super power achieved: INVISIBILITY.