Blog Award Nomination - Moi?

I am so excited to tell my very few followers and readers that this blog was just nominated for a Liebster Award! When I googled the actual award name, I get lots of blogs mentioning it but failed to find the actual web site housing the awards. From what I can find, I was nominated by a Liebster award-winning blogger who is actually Australian and living in France for a year with her family of seven (cool!). Check out Our House In Quercy to read all about it. The requirements to be nominated include less than 200 Google followers (easy to "tick this box" - American translation: "check this one off the list") and of course have some cool content. Thank you to Our House In Quercy for the nomination. Here's a link to her nomination page.

Traveling To America By Myself With a 9 Month Old

Months leading up to our departure, I was dreading this trip. Most Americans, I think, feel the same way I do. But I know many moms in my mom's group who travel to other countries with their bubs and don't seem to give it a second thought. They don't all do it by themselves, but it's much more of a common thing to do here, I guess because so many have family in other countries. And that's why I sacrificed my sanity, spending 2 weeks away from my husband, and I'm glad we did it. However, if I had known that the return trip would be a million times harder than the flights out, I may have had second thoughts.

Let me begin by saying that the trip there could not have been easier unless we had had a bassinet seat. I got to the ticket counter in Sydney and they offered me 3 bulkhead seats but no bassinet. Ugh. How to have a 14 hour flight and a baby sleeping on me? How do you use the bathroom? Will she even sleep? How do I eat my meals? Fill out customs forms? All of these thoughts rapidly ran through my head. But I sucked it up, got on the plane, and by a miracle was given a "floor bassinet," which was really a duffel bag with some cardboard supporting the sides. See below.

She barely fit in there but somehow was comfortable enough to sleep. God bless her. Then we got to SFO and happened upon a baby playroom. Jackpot! Avery is crawling and needed an outlet to release all that baby crawling energy and this was perfect. Long story short, this was a dream travel day. Of course I should mention a few things I noticed as an expat. United Airlines is much less accommodating to single moms or moms/families in general than other Australian based ones. Quantas and Jetstar both were wonderful. I had heard from friends that the stewards and stewardesses were trained to help mothers, holding the baby while you use the bathroom, washing bottles, etc. This was not the case on United. It was a much more annoyed/flippant attitude. I asked one if they had anything I could wash bottles with besides the hand soap in the bathroom and was quickly and flatly told no. The people, however, who are parents or grandparents and traveling alongside you can be godsends. I don't know what I would have done on the return flights without these angels who helped me out.

And to that, I won't go into a lot of detail because it's something I'm trying to block from my memory, but basically within two weeks, my baby became 100% more active, refusing to even let me change her diaper, and add to that severe jetlag, and you have a miserable 24 hours. Charlotte to San Francisco included a few hours of screaming and middle seat friend who didn't want to move to another middle seat (someone behind us kindly offered!), so when she wasn't screaming, Avery was trying to grab his computer, book, arm hair, and then wasn't able to nap because he had his reading light on. The second flight she slept for five hours and the other 10 weren't so bad thanks to a surrogate dad sitting next to us who was a new father himself and was great helping me out.

St George Open Air Cinema

Last weekend we visited the Botanical Gardens for the very popular Open Air Cinema and it didn't disappoint. It only happens in January and February and if you want tickets, you have to buy them right when they go on sale or they sell out. I got some great advice to go to their web site and sign up for updates, so I knew exactly when they were on sale. I didn't get my first picks for films, but I got two different showings - Martha Marcy May Marlene is what we saw this past weekend (very depressing) and then the day after Valentines Day we are seeing a Reece Witherspoon chick flick, This Is War. Regardless of the film you see, the backdrop to the screen is breathtaking - harbor views at sunset with the Opera House and the city skyline, with the occasional bat flying overhead. If you get there early (gates open 2 hours before the movie starts), you can claim your seats then wander over to the bar and just enjoy the scenery. Depending on the night, a few tickets are released at the door on the evening of the event, so you could always take your chances too.

Sydney Bats

I have been meaning to post something about the bats here for a few weeks, and I guess in true Sydney-style, I stopped doing anything productive for about a month. Businesses everywhere just shut down here during the holidays and a few doctors I had been trying to make appointments with just started accepting calls today! So the bats (I was reminded to do this post today when I saw bat road kill)... I had heard there were bats here, but I didn't realize how different they would look from the ones in my parents' attic. They look like the bats you see as Halloween decorations. Huge wings and enormous wing span and very fury.  According to sydneybats.org.au, the breed is called grey-headed flying fox. They look kind of cute up close in the photos there. But below is my own photo, taken in the Royal Botanical Gardens of Sydney where they are EVERYWHERE. They are not dangerous but a little spooky. I'll be visiting them again tomorrow when I return for a picnic lunch.

Christmas Day Aussie Style

We had a fabulous Christmas this year. After so much rain, the clouds cleared and the sun was shining. We wanted to have a traditional Aussie Christmas, so we (Jeff, Avery, Gigi, Gpa and me) had lobster tails on the barbie for our main course and it was delish! Then we headed down to the beach and walked along the strand listening to Christmas music that we brought with us (probably not very Aussie I'm guessing). Tons of people were out walking along, picnicking, laying on the beach, surfing, swimming. It was great! On Christmas Eve we attended the live nativity family service at St. Matthews on the Corso in Manly. It was interesting. The kiddos seemed to like it, but it was Star Wars characters playing the wise men, Darth Vader was there... I don't know. It was hard to hear where we were sitting in the kids/pram room and it was standing room only - we got some of the last few seats in the TV room. Very... different. But I heard kids say it was cool, and I think that's what they were going for. All in all, a great Christmas.

Merry Chrissy

One thing I L-O-V-E is how they add a "y" or "ie" to words. It makes them so much more fun! Mozzie=Mosquito, Brelly=Umbrella, Cozzie=Swim Suit (or Swim Costume), Brekkie=Breakfast, Prezzy=Present and of course Chrissy=Christmas. Fun, right? That way too I get to share my name with the holiday. We are enjoying the season, but honestly it just doesn't feel that Chrissy to me yet. If you've been reading, you know we don't have cable, and sadly there are no Chrissy movies on like in the states. People don't listen to non-stop Chrissy music here either. My husband is told at work that he has a Christmas fetish because he listens to Chrissy music all the time. I was also surprised that street fairs happening on the weekends don't include any Chrissy ornaments or decorations. If you want a summer Santa type of ornament or really anything made in Oz, you will be searching high and low to find it. I found some cool ones this weekend at a touristy store, but the cute home ware stores just carry the regular things you would find in the states. They told me it's too expensive to buy Australian-made things and make a good profit margin. Sad but surprising? No. Another thing I have really struggled to find is a gift box or a good (or even decent) ribbon for gift wrapping. I really love wrapping prezzies, making cool bows, etc, but I just had to give up. Please comment if you have recommendations, esp on the bows around Manly. Otherwise I will have to use the little creativity that I possess.

Differences In Opinion

You wouldn't think that there would be that many discrepancies between recommendations for babies here versus in the states, but I have come across quite a few. It's hard when you have read and re-read your handy baby books from America a million times, and then you get to your regular checkups and they throw a curve ball at you. Whose opinion do you go with? Most of the differences have centered on feeding. First when I got here I wondered what kind of water I should mix with the formula, especially since I am not familiar with the water here. When I asked around, the only opinion in Oz is boil the water. This is harder than it sounds though because it's only sterile a certain amount of hours, it must boil a certain amount of minutes, etc, and if I don't need to do it, I would rather not. I ended up going against popular opinion in Oz and we buy sterilized steam purified water, which is ok according to my book. 

Then solids came along. The book I have (Baby 411) said starting at 6 months, 1 meal per day in between bottles, then at 7 months 2 meals and by 8, 3 meals. The GP (General Practitioner, which babies see instead of a Pediatrician unless something is really wrong and they need a specialist) said feed solids first, then bottle. The Early Childhood Development Center (Gov't office you see for regular milestone checkups and growth) said she needs 3 solids a day and feed bottle, then 30 minutes to an hour later do the solids. Well, Avery made the decisions for me I guess. She doesn't like her formula so I did start her on 3 solids a day and she just turned 7 months old. But it's interesting to see how different the medical community feels about these things. Another book I have with baby food recipes says a pediatrician should clear the baby for 3 solid meals by 9 months! Guess we're just ahead of the game.