*sigh* It’s getting cold here in Chicago.
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Last year, Kauai
Posted on October 30, 2010 by Amanda
Travel Baby Bed Fail
Posted on October 20, 2010 by Amanda
Back in April we flew to Minnesota to see family. It was our first flight with baby and one of the things we tried to do was save ourselves a little room when packing by ordering a PeaPod baby bed and shipping it to our destination. In theory, this was a genius idea (thankyouverymuch), and I still stand by the idea of ordering supplies on Amazon and shipping them to your destination. We’ve considered it for disposable diapers and wipes.
I had heard terrible things about the cribs that hotels offer. I didn’t want to lug along our own Pack n’ Play. I wanted something safe, clean, and personally owned for Baby. We wanted a PeaPod for future camping trips. It’s an excellent item that folds up into a very small, light package. I would have loved it for personal use. The size is great for toddlers. I could see bringing it along to all-day family gatherings so Baby could have a nap in a “bed” as well as camping. It has a canopy to cover Baby for naps on the beaches. All these are great, except…
When Rob blew it up in the hotel after we picked it up from my sister’s house, we noticed the little air mattress leaked.
After this, I can’t recommend the use of a PeaPod for an infant or even young toddler. I just couldn’t feel safe. We considered exchanging it for a new one, but if it was leaking after shipping new in the box, who knows how long until another leak sprung, possibly during use.
So we ended up using the Pack n’ Play provided by the hotel with a sheet we had brought from our own PNP. It was clean, possibly never used, and completely safe as it’s the same thing Baby sleeps in every day at daycare. Since then, we’ve stayed in multiple hotels with her and never had an issue with the baby beds provided, so we’re still able to leave that one item off our huge packing list for traveling with Baby.
So if you travel with kids, what shortcuts do you take in terms of gear?
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Sometimes Single Mom
Posted on October 18, 2010 by Amanda
I found this great site called Sometimes Single Mom that reflects a lot of the stuff we are going through with Rob’s grueling travel schedule lately: dealing with chores when one partner’s gone a lot, who you rely on for help with the kids, scheduling, feeling alone, readjusting to being together.
I feel like a Sometimes Single Mom, too, and in fact said I wouldn’t have a baby until Rob didn’t travel for work because I didn’t want to be a single mom. Ha! That didn’t work out so well (for which we’re so lucky). Here we are, but sometimes he’s a Single Dad when I’m gone, too.
I loved finding this site because it reminded me that there are others in the same situation, something very reassuring when friends and family seem to pity our situation. Look, it’s tough, but it’s what we’re dealing with right now. Reading the comments on Are You a Sometimes Single Mom illustrated just how many people out there are in situations like this. I know so many people who travel for their careers, not to mention those in the military or even those who stay at home while the other parent spends up to 12 hours away each day thanks to their commute and their time at the office.
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Time that’s not for sale
Posted on October 14, 2010 by Amanda
Yesterday, on the road, I heard an interview with musician Peter Himmelman on NPR where he talked about not taking gigs on Jewish holidays. He said something about it that really hit home, that it’s good to have time that’s not for sale thanks to his faith.
Do you have time that’s not for sale, especially if you travel for work?
We’ve both travelled for our birthdays and been apart for anniversaries. Missing Baby’s birthday is from here on out forbidden, though. That’s going to have to be sacred in our family. We’ve worked toward having certain days of the week be work travel-free, like Sunday and Friday nights. Can we, should we go back to our strict rules about that?
What are your sacred days? Do you feel like these times keep you together better? Do they affect your work trajectory? Anyone feel like they missed a promotion because they observe Sabbath? What’s your threshold? How much career progress are you willing to give up in honor of religion or family time for example? I want to hear.
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Complete system breakdown
Posted on October 13, 2010 by Rob
I (Rob) scheduled a flight from LAX to ORD through SEA in May. This particular trip home was first on Alaska Airlines, transferring to a red-eye on American Airlines. It was my last scheduled trip after 9 travel weeks in a row, and I was looking forward to 10 days at home with Amanda and baby.
In LA, I checked in online and printed 2 boarding passes, one for each leg of the trip, both branded as Alaska Air passes. At the same time, since the trip was booked through American, I verified that aa.com showed all the correct flight info, which it did. Arriving at the airport, I checked in, and everything looked fine. I boarded, the flights were on time, and the flight was smooth up to Seattle. Now only 1 leg to a week of calm…
In Seattle, things changed. The American flight opened boarding to many requests for volunteers, as it was heavily oversold. I wouldn’t have taken that option for $1000, so I boarded with the Platinum group, loading my laptop bag and carry-on luggage. As I settled in, another traveler stepped up, claiming I was in his seat. Comparing boarding passes, both of them had the same window seat! The aisle passenger in our row immediately became concerned and vocal, exacerbating the situation. After calming him down and telling the “other” 14F to take 14E in the meantime, I hit the call button. Remember, this took place on the plane.
The flight attendant came back, took our duplicated boarding passes, and asked me to bring my luggage to the front of the plane. It was quickly explained that I wasn’t actually checked in for the flight, and Alaska had failed to transfer my check-in status to American (despite having 24 hours to do so). I was forced to take the next flight to Chicago, 8 hours later, since the flight was overbooked, they were already pushing 4 people to a nearby hotel, and the “other” 14F had a boarding pass printed by AA at the airport.
American handled it as well as they could, providing me a voucher (which we’re using to go to Minnesota for Thanksgiving) for my trouble, and paying for the taxi to my parents’ house (they happen to live in Seattle, so I was able to stay somewhere comfortable). Still, I had to wake my parents at 1am to make sure they were home and could take me, and call and wake Amanda at 11pm Chicago time to let her know I wouldn’t be home to help take the baby to daycare, and she’d need to reset her alarm.
I complained about it on Twitter, and Alaska Airlines responded. The best they were able to determine at the time was something on American’s side. American customer service (Gold line) said they’ve seen this before from Alaska, and the only way around it is to check in with AA once you arrive at the transfer airport.
Yet one more reason why nonstop flights are a requirement for business travel.
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Breast Pumping on the Road Part 2: Observations and Results
Posted on August 16, 2010 by Amanda
My personal goal on this business trip was to come home with some edible food for my baby. I don’t have a lot of extra milk and usually need exactly what I pump each day to send to daycare the next day.
In preparation, I wrote out a schedule, backing out the times I’d be unable to pump because I was in the meeting or in the air. That schedule went out the window as soon as my first flight was delayed. In fact, it was delayed enough I wasn’t even sure I’d make it to Minneapolis before the meeting started. (I didn’t, actually.)
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Family Anthem
Posted on August 13, 2010 by Amanda
We sing this to Baby almost every single day.
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Breast Pumping on the Road, Part 1: Preparation
Posted on August 5, 2010 by Amanda
Breastfeeding is very travel-friendly: where ever you go, you have baby’s next meal. It’s always sterile, the right temperature, and you don’t need to wash any bottles.
Breastfeeding without baby, on the road, is a challenge I was recently faced with. I had prepared myself for pumping on the road when I had overnight travel or for company meetings. My corporate offices have a lactation room. I had not prepared myself for a one day trip: flying, no hotel, at a customer’s office with no private rooms available.
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Travels with Baby
Posted on July 8, 2010 by Amanda
Hey! We’re here! We’re still around and hoping to get back to writing here. It’s just, you see, we had a baby. She’s lovely, but apparently keeps us pretty busy.
Baby is four and a half months old and we’ve flown with her twice now to see family. She went to Minneapolis at 6 weeks and Seattle at 10 weeks. We can’t pretend to be experts on flying with a baby at all. The experts are probably over here at Have Baby, Will Travel. You should check out the wealth of information over there; I know I have several times.
Here’s what I can tell you:
1. Fly early! Babies do better on planes early on when they sleep a lot. At this point, with Baby near crawling, I imagine holding her in the seat will be like holding onto a burlap sack of jello. With 8 legs.
2. Feed on takeoff and landing, like everybody says. However, this might be hard when your flight is only 1 hour, as our Minneapolis flight was. It’s hard to force feed a baby who just ate an hour ago. Luckily, our landings weren’t too hard on Baby’s ears on those particular flights. They were very hard on the Seattle flights with longer descents.
3. Bring extra clothes for parents and baby on the plane. Make sure they are your easiest clothes to slip on and off because you might find yourself changing an infant in your seat. Also, we just stuck to jammies with zippers for both trips, even for daytime, but it was early spring. They are very easy clothes to dress Baby in with few matching pieces to track.
4. It takes twice as long to get to the airport as it used to. Calculate accordingly. There’s a special vortex that slows you down on the way out the door when you are carrying an infant.
We’ll talk about the gear we chose to take, what worked and what didn’t next time.
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Adventures in Mileage Redemption
Posted on August 28, 2009 by Rob
Normally, Amanda and I end up using our airline and hotel points for brief free trips to see family in Minnesota. One or two nights in an inexpensive hotel, and maybe the flight there. It gets us an extra weekend with nieces and nephews every other year, but not a “real” vacation. This year, we decied to try something different, despite the years of travel Amanda did, and the last 16 months of very heavy travel I’ve been doing.
We just finished arranging the last pieces of our “nearly pure points” vacation to Hawaii in October. We got a $100/night deal from the Marriott Kaua’i Beach Club (that room is normally $350), the airfare on American in miles, and the car from Hertz on points. I plan to scuba dive (with my own gear), we’ll do some snorkeling, and a lot of hiking to keep things inexpensive.
We recieved the offer from the Marriott, and decied we’d only do it if we could get there on miles, but we had a very difficult time booking travel on aa.com. From Chicago to Lihue, Hawaii (LIH), the only direct flights are from LAX, and on the website, every available flight with a 4-7 night stay (any time between September and November) connected through Miami or Dallas before LAX. Two 2-plus-hour layovers, on top of the 10 or more hours in the air. Things were looking like the trip wouldn’t happen.
So we called the American Airlines reservations desk. They pulled up the history from our web sessions, and were able to set up a trip in October, off-peak, with only the one layover in LAX. We’ll spend our layover in the Aadmiral’s club in LA, which is a really nice place to spend 4 hours in an airport. They were able to put the travel together and put it on hold, so that we could verify the hotel had room (another phone call), and then we just had to click “buy now” on the AA website.
This was all accomplished with the help of two AA reps – Amir and Cheryl, who were both fantastic. They were kind, patient, and actually pretty funny, too. This made the phone calls a blessing after the frustration of trying to find the perfect flight online.
Unfortunately, the hotel reservation did not go quite as smoothly. We had to match up the available airline dates with available hotel dates, and couldn’t do any of it online, so it was a dance from calling American to calling the Marriott… ugh. Our hotel deal was only for 5 nights, and the Marriott required us to hang up after booking it, and call a *different* number to get the 6th, which had to be a separate booking entirely, and couldn’t be added onto the first one. The phone reps were extremely nice and professional, but the system was still extremely frustrating.
The Hertz rental was set up easy enough as it was all online, and American Express walks you through the point redemption step by step, and now we’re set to go – a nice warm-weather vacation, just as it’s getting cold here in Chicago.
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