Ramble Ramble

Welcome to The Essentials, a new sometimes feature here on the blog where I can show some of the products that are in my survival toolkit. To kick things off, I’m starting with my “traveling mom” edition, a list of those products I found essential as a mom traveling without my kid. This list is mostly geared toward a mom who is still nursing/pumping, but there’s one little tip at the end that will also be helpful for traveling mommies in general. Let’s get started, shall we?

1. A good pump. Of course, where else to start? I already have a heavy duty pump, since I pump for the kid while I’m at work. I personally have the Medala Pump in Style, which is  a spendy little number, but for the trip, I considered just buying a little handheld job (like this one). I knew I was going to have to pump either at airports or on the airplane, and I thought a handheld might be easier. In the end, I opted to just take my big mamajama because I was going to be pumping 6 or so times a day to keep up with how often the kid was nursing. If he had been a little older, with fewer nursings per day, I might have gone the handheld route.
2. Some pump accessories. If you bring an electric pump, and you know you’re going to have to pump while actually traveling (in the air/car/train), I would strongly suggest a battery pack if that’s an option, and some extra batteries. It was stressful enough to figure out pumping at the airport without having to worry about finding an outlet in a quiet spot. I would also suggest bringing one extra set of whatever you’ll pump into (bottles for me), and one extra set of membranes for your pump. Because if that gives out you’re going to kick yourself.
3. Storage for the breastmilk. I didn’t want to spend all this time pumping while I was gone and just dump the milk. So, I needed a way to store it while on my trip. The first part of that: milk storage bags. I use these Lansinoh Storage Bags, rather than bottles.  I’ve tried the Medala ones also, but I don’t like them as much, so I just stuck with what I normally use. Let me give you a tip though: bring more than you think you’ll need. I brought what I thought was enough, but I was wrong. Which resulted in a trip to the Times Square Toys R Us (in the rain, while I was sick) to pick up some more. Lest you not be near a Target or Babies R Us when you travel, take my tip and just bring extras.
4. Storage for the breastmilk, part 2. Of course, what to do with all that breastmilk? Ask your hotel to help out. Here’s what I did: Three days before my trip, I called to verify my reservation. When I did, I asked the nice reservation guy if there were refrigerators in the rooms that can be used for guests items. When he said no (be prepared for that–even if there are minibar fridges, most hotels don’t allow you to use them), I asked whether there was anything the hotel could recommend if I needed to refrigerate items while I was there. For an extra $25 for my entire stay, I was able to request a mini-fridge all to myself. Totally worth the money, IMO. Based on my research, that may not always be an option, but I’ve heard of hotels allowing guests to use a part of their fridges. You just have to ask. Tip here: don’t be shy about the fact that you need a place to store breastmilk. Seriously, it’s a service profession and I can GUARANTEE they’ve heard much stranger requests.
5. Lanolin (unless you’re allergic). One of the best tips I read when I first started pumping was to use lanolin EVERY time you pump. I promise you, this saved me from giving up on pumping. I personally love the Medala Tender Care, which goes on way easier than the Lansinoh stuff I had. Anyway, when you’re traveling, this is doubly important–you’re in airplanes and hotels that have lots of recirculated, dry air, which does nasty things to your skin, much less your tender bits. Seriously, every time.
6. Cell phone. Besides that whole, calling to keep in touch with the family at home, your cell phone can play a very important role in this whole thing. Load that sucker up with photos of the baby. Record his voice (either with a voice tool, or just call your voicemail and record the baby). If you have the option of video clips, do that too. These are great tools for 1)when you miss that kid more than you thought possible, 2) when your meetings are draining your will to live and 3) when you have a hard time letting down to pump. Now, that last one, I wasn’t expecting. I’ve never had a problem letting down for the pump (knock on wood), but while I was traveling? Nope, no let down. It makes sense, between the stress and the missing him and the weird environment. But those things on my phone were super helpful to help with letdown. And even my old, non-smart phone had those capabilities, so you should have a few options here, no matter the sophistication (or lack of) that your phone has.

So there you have it, my list of necessities for a traveling, nursing mom (sans baby). It takes a little more planning, a little more effort, but it’s totally possible to keep it up while away from your baby.

Oh, and I didn’t include a way to get the milk home, because I went totally ghetto and just put it in my suitcase in ziplock storage bags that were wrapped in about 5 plastic grocery bags. You know, cuz I’m fabulous that way. I just froze some of them in the freezer part of the mini-fridge the night before I traveled home so that I didn’t have to worry about ice packs or anything. Again, cuz I’m fabulous. But it worked, without having to buy anything new or worry about paying to ship the stuff home.

As always, more lists can be found over at Anna’s at abdpbt!

This past weekend, N.C. and I boarded a jet plane and flew off to Chicago for a belated anniversary trip (thanks to some airline ticket vouchers and Priceline) that was a sorely needed break from the “real world.” For four whole days, we were without email, blogs, twitter, facebook, anything. It was really nice to just…be. We took our time exploring, took it easy, and just enjoyed the city and each other.

We got to stay in an amazing hotel (The Palmer House Hilton), which is apparently this big, fancy, extremely well known historical hotel. Once again, Priceline Roulette doesn’t let us down! Seriously though, we booked the hotel through the name your own price feature on Priceline and got an amazing steal on this great hotel. The rooms were a little small, but the hotel is something like 90 years old, so we’ll cut them some slack. I only wish we had gotten some pictures of the absolutely amazing ceiling in the lobby!

Because of the whole preganacy thing, we took this trip pretty easy, doing one “big” thing per day every day we were there. We had to limit our walking more than we normally would have (thanks to super swollen feet and the slow pregnant woman waddle), but I still think we hit a lot of the big points of downtown Chicago. Of course we hit up “The Bean” the first day we were there.

A friend of ours had tried to explain this odd sculpture to us before, but honestly, until we were there looking at it, we didn’t get the uniqueness. The reflection of the city in this oddly shaped sculpture is pretty striking.

People take pictures of themselves in the reflection of The Bean, since it is basically a giant mirror. We did too, but apparently we stood in front of the portion that had just had a milkshake thrown at it (in other words, the shot didn’t really come out), so this will have to do. But of course, as anyone who has seen The Bean knows, it’s really the experience that’s trippy. You can walk through the middle of the sculpture, and get right up close to it, and it’s all very bizarre, and cool, but no photos really do that experience justice.

Just in case you need proof that we were there–here’s a photo of me with The Bean in the background (and a reflection of the city in my sunglasses–that’s kind of a cool shot!). After this, we did a whole lot of touristy & cool stuff like:

• go see a man about the blues (and some cajun food!) at Buddy Guy’s Legends
• do the double-decker city tour (always a great way to see a city, even if it’s the most touristy thing imaginable)
• have Chicago dogs at Portillo’s
• go see some jazz at Andy’s Jazz Club
• enjoy a day at the Art Institute of Chicago
• have dessert (me) and cocktails (N.C.) in the fancy lobby of our historic hotel
• snarf down some deep dish pizza at Pizzeria Uno (the original)
• check out the art and a mid-day concert at the Chicago Cultural Center
• Plus we did lots of sleeping, napping and relaxing!
• And, as a special bonus, I got the joy of a personalized tour of Chicago bathrooms, thanks to the little man hanging out on my bladder most of the trip.

While we were there, we also got to enjoy glimpses of crazy hordes of soccer fans (Honduras vs. the US, and I swear there were probably 100 Honduras fans for every US fan we saw. It was insane) and bits of the Gospel Music Festival. All in all, it was a really fantastic weekend. I’m glad we made the time to do this trip, both as our anniversary celebration and as a pre-baby vacation. It was nice to spend time together, enjoying a new city with each other. I’m always reminded of how lucky I am that N.C. and I enjoy each others company so much–we make good travel partners! And it was nice to have one last special trip that’s “just us” before our lives completely change in a few months. Even though I’m sure we’ll travel without kids in the future, we’ll be different, in a different kind of world, so it was nice to have one last fling in this non-baby universe.

Home, oh glorious home!!

I may have mentioned it once or twice, but business travel wears on me. And after myriad little problems with my hotel during my trip, 12 days in a bed not my own, and multiple co-worker roommates, I was more than ready to come back home.

In honor of my happiness to be back, I’m getting back in the swing of things with a list:

The top 10 things about Coming Home

1. My bed, my pillows, my cat, and my husband all make sleeping a much better situation than a hotel any day.
2. If my husband snores, I can poke him, unlike if co-worker roommates snore.
3. Coming home to a clean house means I don’t have to do anything for a few days
4. Being without my husband for 12 days (the longest we’ve been apart since probably the 2nd year we dated long long ago) makes me realize just how much I love him, rely on him, and don’t function very well without him.
5. Taking a day off of work after so much travel just so I can sleep late, nap during the day, and not have to speak any words that are work related is the epitome of “I deserve it”.
6. Getting to watch all MY tv, and not share prime time hours with coworkers whose viewing habits don’t mirror mine, makes me selfish but happy.
7. The kitty missed me so much that he didn’t do his normal meow in the middle of the night punishment, instead deciding he must be a lap cat whenever I’m sitting down. If you knew my cat, you would understand how strange this is.
8. Landing in San Diego after 12 days in New York was once again a forceful reminder of how much I love it here, and how much the weather sucks out there. And we had decent weather while I was in New York. Just to prove again that we made the right choice in leaving NYC.
9. Catching up on my personal email, blog reading, news feeds and the like makes me feel like I’m back into the “real” world. Something happens when I’m on a business trip where I feel totally disconnected from the rest of the world, even with access to news, tv, etc.
10. Coming back to a giant bear hug from my husband, and lots of hand-holding. I couldn’t ask for a better homecoming.

Well, I’ve been in New York a few days. I got lucky and it’s been nice here…well, nice for February anyway. It’s supposed to get colder next week, but honestly, by that time, I’ll probably be more sick of living in a hotel than the weather.

Living out of a hotel always seems like it’s going to be great. What’s not to like? You don’t have to clean up, you can have food delivered to your door, they’ll call you to wake you up, etc. You have no responsibilities like changing the catbox or doing dishes or playing with the cat or making sure your husband wakes up in time.

But honestly, I find it exhausting. Let’s ignore for the moment that I’m here for business, and I have to spend 11 nights sharing a room with a coworker. Let’s ignore the fact that I’m in one of the busiest most hectic cities around. Let’s ignore that it’s not my bed or my pillows. No beyond those things, I find it tiring for a quite literal reason:

I don’t sleep very well without my husband in bed with me.

I know, it sounds silly right? But this holds true at home too, when N.C. stays up too late and doesn’t come to bed utnil the wee small hours. Even though I may go to bed, I don’t sleep deeply until he’s in bed too. So in a hotel, by myself in a bed? The first few nights are torture. I’ll be exhausted, dog tired from the travel, wishing desperately for bed. But the second my head hits the pillow, I’m wide awake. I fidget. I toss and turn. Basically, I just don’t sleep well.

You’d think it would eventually catch up with me right? That I’d get so tired that I’d finally just crash? Well, sure, it does. Eventually. It just usually takes about 5 or 6 nights. Most of the time when I travel for business, I’m not around for that long! This time, yes that will be handy for the latter part of my trip, but that is a rarity.

I really can’t wait to get back to my husband, my bed, my kitty, and get a decent nights sleep.

Let me tell you a story…a story about traveling the friendly (?) skies during the holidays…a story that’s so unbelievable, many will think I’m making it up.

We got to the airport entirely too early (due to a fluke with traffic, not having to deal with luggage or the security line due to the kinds of tickets we purchased), so we had some time to kill. As we’re sitting there, enjoying our Starbucks, we hear an announcement:

“This flight is overbooked. We’re looking for passengers who have flexible travel plans who would be willing to take the next flight out in exchange for $300 travel vouchers.”

Ok, so you guys saw that one of my goals for 2009 is to travel. Um, free travel vouchers? Sign me up! We had a 2 1/2 hour layover in Dallas anyway, so I figured if they could get us into Dallas in time to make our connection, we were golden.

Sure enough, the next flight out is only 1 hour later, getting us into Dallas in plenty  of time for our original connection. Done, and done. 2 vouchers sitting in my purse while we enjoy a nice bloody mary and some lunch and wait for our flight.

But it gets better (seriously!). About 30 minutes before our new flight leaves, while we’re waiting to board, we hear them call our name, and ask to come to the gate. They ask us if we would want to be bumped again for another set of vouchers! But because we don’t want to screw things up for the people picking us up in San Antonio, we decline. So the nice gate agent says, “oh that’s ok, here are your new tickets then.” We look down…

We’ve been bumped up to first class so that they can use our seats in coach.

Seriously, I’d been expecting travel Armageddon, it being the holidays and all, and I get money from the airline and first class accommodations?  What alternate travel universe did we wander into?

Of course, on the trip back, I was convinced we had used all our travel karma up and that we would have nothing but problems. And things appeared that way…our flight out on Sunday night got delayed so long they cancelled it for us, and put us on a plane the next day. Monday we arrived so early we had to kill 2 hours in the San Antonio airport (they weren’t sure they “really” had us booked in seats on Sunday night, so we had to arrive early to make sure). But then, we arrive in Dallas for our connecting flight. And as we’re sitting there, hand to my heart, we hear:

“This flight is overbooked. We’re looking for passengers who have flexible travel plans who would be willing to take the next flight out in exchange for $300 travel vouchers.”

I kept asking N.C., “are we being punked? Did we hit some alternate universe?” I mean, I was dreading this trip knowing all the crap that has been going on in the airline industry, and they kept….giving us stuff!

Guys, we ended up that trip with 4 travel vouchers, a meal voucher, first class for one leg of the trip, no luggage costs, bypassing lines at security and at the gate, and all it cost us was waiting time.  I may never have another good flight experience again (having completely used up any and all travel karma), but man, it was worth it!