Our First Overnight Trip

After months of talking about it, planning, backing out, and postponing, we finally conquered one of our biggest fears – taking Caitlyn out for an overnight trip. Some of you might ask, “Why would you put yourself through this torture? Stay in the comfort of your own home!”

Well, with my parents coming in June, we thought it would be nice to take some short family trips with them, but before we could do that, we had to be sure Caitlyn could handle it.

Our trip was to Yilan, a city that’s about 1 ½ hours from Taipei. Far away enough to make it seem like an actual trip, but close enough that we could run home if we encountered any problems.

To prepare for our endeavor, we packed:

6 bibs
4 burp cloths
3 changes of clothes
two pairs of socks
10 diapers
a towel
a big packet of wet wipes
skin moisturizer
rash lotion
ear thermometer
fever-reducing medicine
5 baby bottles
a bottle of liquid soap
a bottle brush
bottled baby food
freshly made baby food
crackers
a canister of baby formula
3 pacifiers
a thermos of water
her crib mattress
baby carrier
4 spoons
a baby bowl
3 board books
toys
blanket

Am I forgetting anything here? I probably am. Succinctly put, it was a lot of stuff just for a baby. A lot of the stuff we never used, but it’s better to be overprepared than underprepared.

Following a planned strategy of leaving right before Caitlyn’s first nap at 11:00, we were able to have a peaceful first hour in the car before having to endure an hour of slight fussing once she woke up. Our b&b was next to a lake, and I was quite surprised at how quaint and peaceful everything was. Kudos to the wife for picking this place!

Up to this point, Caitlyn was acting like she normally would on any given day. The big test would come at night. She has never slept outside of our house or her crib, so we weren’t sure how she would respond. But when 8:30 rolled around, I put her down on her mattress, and she quietly fell asleep without a fuss. In fact, she actually slept more peacefully than she normally would at home. Imagine that!

In the end, I am pleased to say that the trip was a success. Caitlyn passed with flying colors! Even the sporadic rain that fell couldn't dampen our moods. The only thing I can find fault with is with my camera and memory stick. Somehow, about half the photos I took suddenly became unviewable. It's not the first time this has happened. Which might mean it's time for a new camera!  

Now that we know taking our baby out on overnight trips is possible, that expands our choices of things we can do. The next big step is to try taking her on a plane, which might happen if we take a trip with my parents this summer. But it’s still something we’re mulling over. Taking a car trip is one thing. Taking a plane trip is a whole other ball game. The big question is, is Caitlyn up for the challenge?

Yay! We're going on a trip!

So far, so good!

OMG!

If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!

Taking a break

Waiting out the rain

 

A walk in the park

At the lake

Boat ride on the lake

The countryside

 

Bug sex!

Listening to a grandma go on about her grandkids

Inspecting the room

Organizing Mommy's messy wallet

 

My favorite picture!

Yummy country breakfast

Shoes

Here’s the difference between the way men and women shop:

Me: Hey, take a look at these shoes on Amazon. It has the American Podiatric Medical Association seal of approval, is recommended by a lot of people, reasonably priced, and it has free shipping! These should be good for Caitlyn.

Jessie: Are you crazy?! Look at the color! It’s white! By the time she can wear these, it will be winter. Do you seriously expect me to take my daughter out in winter with white shoes?!
Me: Uh, yes?
Jessie: How would you like it if I dressed our daughter in brown pants right now when it’s summer?
Me: Is this like a trick question or something?

As you can tell, we are currently in shoe shopping mode right now. With Caitlyn mastering the art of crawling and is standing up and walking with support, the next step will be for her to begin taking her first steps unaided.

Even though we’ve had shoes for her ever since she was a little baby, she’s never really worn any of them because she would either cry whenever they were put on, or they would fall off by themselves, or she would pull them off herself. Plus, she never really had any use for shoes besides decorative purposes.

Now that she’s standing, it seems like a good time to introduce shoes back into her life. But before going out and buying the first pair of cute shoes you see, there are a few things you should know.

First, babies learn to walk by feeling the ground. Therefore, they should go barefoot or just wear socks whenever possible. Only wear shoes when they need protection from walking outside.

Shoes that babies wear before they can actually walk are called pre-walkers. These shoes do not have hard soles and are usually made of cloth or leather. They are very flexible and do not offer any support for the feet. Pre-walkers are mainly meant for show and are not meant to be used when your baby is learning to walk.

First walkers are shoes that are to be used when the baby is learning to walk. They have a harder sole, but still have some flexibility and should not be too stiff. Good first walkers should be lightweight and breathable and be made of material such as canvas or soft leather. These shoes offer the support a baby needs when walking and encourage proper feet development.

So there you have it, the in's and out's of baby shoes. Color coordination not required.

unHappy Mother's Day

Mother’s Day is all about honoring the person who gave you life, and in my case, the one who gave our daughter life. Given that this would be the wife’s first Mother’s Day, I figured we should do something special, but she insisted that this wasn’t necessary, because anything we did would just be interrupted by the baby. Besides, it would be crowded at the restaurants. All she wanted for a present was some money to buy clothes and shoes. Simple enough.

However, I still insisted on taking her out to dinner, where as usual, she ate first while I pushed a crying baby around outside and then switched places when she was done. Afterwards, with the baby asleep in the stroller, the wife went to go do some clothes shopping while I went with the baby to the bookstore.

It wasn’t but about 15 minutes later that Caitlyn woke up crying and wouldn’t stop, so off I went to find the wife. But as we waited outside the store for her to pay for the clothes, Caitlyn’s screams just got louder and louder and was beginning to draw a crowd, so I finally decided to head back to the car first.

Somewhere between me leaving the store and walking towards the parking lot, there was a bit of miscommunication and later, when the wife finally found us, she angrily asked why I hadn’t picked up my phone when she had called. I actually hadn’t heard the phone call, but because I wasn’t happy with the way she asked, I replied back, “I was carrying a crying baby and pushing the stroller. How could I pick up the phone? Isn’t that what your excuse always is when I ask why you never call or text back?”

That last line probably wasn’t the smartest move, but I have this real bad habit of taking the wife’s words and turning them on her, which really just irks the heck out of her. Therefore, she let me have it, by way of a night on the couch and an earful of not too delicately selected words.

And to add insult to injury, I had major diarrhea when we got home. At least she was considerate enough to let me have a blanket and the remote control to the air conditioner, albeit without batteries.

So much for putting the ‘happy’ in Happy Mother’s Day. This disaster ranks right up there with eating at Burger King for Christmas, but at least she wasn’t angry about that. At least I don’t think she was. Ok, she probably wasn’t too amused by it either.

 At least one person's happy on Mother's Day

 Rockin' the knee pads

 Doh! I dropped the picture of Mommy!

We Need to Talk About Robin Hood

This past weekend, the wife and I watched the movie, We Need to Talk About Kevin. At first, she said she had never heard of the movie, but about a quarter of the way in, she suddenly exclaimed that her sister had just recently told her about this movie. According to the wife, here’s her sister’s summary of the movie:

Sister: So, I watched a movie while I was on the plane. It was about a kid who cried a lot when he was a baby, and when he grew up, he killed a lot of people. Come to think of it, doesn’t your baby cry a lot?
Jessie: Uh…
Sister: Oh, that didn’t really come out right, did it?

While it is true that our baby does cry a lot and probably has some issues that she needs to sort out, one thing that wasn’t mentioned was that the boy in the movie used a bow and arrow to kill his victims.

This is important, because as a kid growing up, I also had a bow and arrow set. And I had a target set up in the backyard just like the one the boy had in the movie. But let it be known that all similarities between this basket case and me end right there.

It all started with the movie, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner. I remember watching that movie in the theaters and afterwards, wanting my own bow and arrow. After constant pestering, my parents finally relented and bought me a nice set.

Well, one day I was playing with it outside, and on a whim, decided to aim it straight up to the sky and shoot it just to see how high it would go. Very, very high, as it turned out. And as it quickly came falling back to earth as a dangerous, speeding projectile, it suddenly occurred to me that it could hit someone.

I didn’t see where it landed, but I could clearly hear it clatter onto someone’s driveway or backyard. For weeks after that, I was terrified that the people who found my arrow would come looking after me. I was scared they would go to the police. Every time I heard police sirens, my heart would begin pounding, and my hands would sweat profusely. In the back of my mind, I had already prepared a good-bye speech to my parents because I was certain it was only a matter of time before the police came to arrest me and whisk me off to jail.

But in the end, nothing came of the incident, and I decided to hang up my bow for good and quit playing Robin Hood. So I think the lesson to be learned from this story is, sure, Caitlyn might be a major whiner and crybaby, but as long as we don’t let her watch Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Disney’s Robin Hood, and the countless other titles that are out there, we should be ok.

Being a couch potato with Mommy

Not watching Robin Hood

Don't make me go crazy eye on you!

Morning crawl

 

When are we going golfing, Uncle Kimi?

By the power of Grayskull!