Scenes from the last 3 weeks

Copenhagen airport, end of June, 11am

"Excuse me, excuse me", I squeezed through the slightly annoyed passengers at gate B2 waiting to board the plane to Stockholm, probably wondering why I thought I had the right to get on first. But I was not getting on. Instead I was waiting for the littlest passenger disembarking from the slightly late arriving plane from Stockholm. I was craning my neck to see the people exiting into the glass tube from the air-bridge, well-knowing that she was not allowed to go out on her own and had to wait until the end. My heart was pounding and when I finally saw her in the distance behind several layers of glass it skipped a beat and I gasped loud enough for the gate agent to pay attention to me for a second, yet still ignoring the fact that I was clearly overstepping the border between gate and air-bridge. When Zoe turned the corner and saw me, she started running as fast as she could pulling her little suitcase. "Mommy!', "Zoe!"; we hugged and kissed and I held her close, careful not to squeeze her too hard. When we finally let go, I looked up at a very young confused airline employee who had accompanied her out of the plane. "Are you continuing on a different plane?", he asked and I told him no, I had just arrived from New York which is why I was still inside the terminal. I wanted to explain that we hadn't seen each other for two months but then I realized that I didn't care what other people thought at all. All I cared about was that Zoe was here with me and we were going on holiday for three weeks. As we walked towards baggage claim, Zoe kept looking up at me and clench my hand, "it's so good to be with you again, Mommy".

Late night in our summer house, early July

My dad raised his glass filled with single malt that he had bought specifically for celebrating my new job in Denmark (he knows I love whiskey, particularly the peaty single malt kind): "To your new job in Denmark. We are very excited to have you back. And to you getting back to the US again". I knew exactly what he meant.

On the plane back to New York, mid July

Zoe with a glass of apple juice and I with a glass of sparkling wine in the front seats of economy plus that we had gotten upgraded to. "Cheers to New York", I said and held up my glass. "Cheers to New York, and cheers to Denmark who gave you a job so we get to live in Denmark!", Zoe added (in Danish) and my eyes welled up. 

New York the day after we got back to our apartment

Zoe was sitting on the side of the bathtub in our tiny NY bathroom while I put on makeup by the mirror. "But mommy", she said thoughtfully, "I don't really have any friends in Denmark. I have friends in New York and in Stockholm, but not really anyone in Denmark". I agreed with her and made a mental note to work on that. 

New York early early in the morning

"Mommy, is it morning yet?" Zoe sat up in our dark bedroom. "No, but we have jetlag. Do you want to go for breakfast?" Zoe agreed excitedly by the thought of pancakes and bacon and we headed out into the still cool West Village morning and found a dinner close to her school that was open at 6am. As we sat there with the crass but friendly waitress serving us orange juice, bagels and bacon I couldn't think of anywhere better to be. This was our third summer in New York City so we were prepared for the sweltering heat and we knew where the free outdoor pools were. This was also the start of some kind of end though. Zoe would be in day camp for a couple of weeks, the same ones as last year, and then I would have to take her back to Stockholm before returning on my own to finish my work in New York. She would start in yet a new school where she knew nobody (three kids from her old daycare were also starting there, however all in the other class) and in September I would start my commuting life between Copenhagen and Stockholm. I already had plans for us to come back to New York in November and December, courtesy of a conference and a committee meeting. But right now we were here, waking up to the view of the Empire State Building every single morning.

Jumping on hotel beds

"You are my favorite travel buddy", I whispered into Zoe's ear after we had settled into the shared ride at exactly 2:50am, taking off for Newark airport. She had woken up immediately as I gently touched her, put on her skirt and sweater herself (she had slept in the rest of her clothes to make this easier), and taken down her little owl suitcase from 4th floor herself. Without as much as a whinge. We chatted about houses and cars and lights as the driver took us to our way-too-early-but-cheap flight.

Zoe and I are off to a conference in Vancouver where I have a paper, and a workshop to attend. Since I'm alone with her in New York, I have no option but to bring her, which is also my preference. There are two simple reasons for why I like to take her 4000 miles across the country and pay close to a 1000 dollars for her to be with me: Firstly, I don't want to lose out on any time with her these days. With her dad wanting her 50% of the time, I am making the most of it, even if it means having to go home early from the conference dinner and see few actual research presentations. The other reason is that not only is she easy to travel with, she is simply a delight (to paraphrase my 90 year old aunt) to travel with. She hardly ever complains and sees everything as fun exploration and reminiscing with me because we have most likely been on that type of plane, in that specific airport and bought that type of airplane snack before. She cried exactly twice, once when she squeezed her finger in-between her suitcase handle and the suitcase, and once when I interrupted her and asked the shop assistant if they had a different type of sushi rolls. Zoe wanted to explain to me exactly what she wanted and I just overruled her, leading to her frustration. I apologized and we were good again. She got the sushi she wanted (we flew via SFO, which has a great sushi place where I have been many times) and we ran to the gate, boarding as the last people.

Onboard the first flight, she quickly fell asleep together with me, her cuddling up on my lap, me nodding most of the way. When we woke up the plane was shaking from turbulence and I hate that. The big secret about me, (and yes, I recognize the irony) is that I actually *hate* flying [blush]. I am just plain scared to fall down. This also feeds into the desire for me to always fly with Zoe because the thought becomes slightly more bearable that we should both fall down together. But Zoe held my hand and comforted me. She suggested we watch some tv on the iPad because that usually helped her, she said and we did. I was very relieved when we hit the ground safely.

On the second flight we reached a milestone. Normally, my attention has to be devoted mostly to her, even if she is watching cartoons or playing on her iPad, and if she is sleeping it is mostly on my lap, limiting my movement. This time, however, she watched cartoons (with my noise canceling headphones) so focused that I pulled out my computer and proceeded to write on a journal article that I'm working on at the moment. I managed to write almost a page, something I have never done on a plane with Zoe before.

We landed and walked the kilometer and a half from the gate to immigration where we had to take the non-resident queue. It took us 30-40 minutes to reach the front, which Zoe patiently waited out with only a bit of complaints. I cursed the officers and fellow passengers for not pulling out the mom traveling with two kids, one 1 1/2 year old who did NOT have 30 minute's patience. But obviously everyone in front of her felt it was more appropriate to listen to the little one crying for most of the time. Finally, it was our turn and I proudly walked up with our rainbow passports. "Where is her father", the young attractive officer asked. "New York", I answered shortly. "Do you have a letter from him?" I froze for a bit. I normally always travel with a letter, I make sure other people traveling with Zoe have a letter but this was just a short trip within the same continent and I had not even thought about bringing passports until two days before. I sighed. "You are actually the first one ever asking for that", I replied honestly and received the obvious "you should always travel with a letter" but after a few more questions he let us through. I joked with a friend later that I was now the child-smuggler.

Zoe jumped eagerly on the hotel bed as we finally got in and we both went to bed early after a long successful travel day.

Sleepless in NY

Zoe and I flew to New York yesterday and have a night in a hotel before we continue to upstate New York where I will be working for a week and a half with great colleagues. I found affordable daycare for Zoe and although she is not as eager about 'meeting new friend' this time I'm sure she will be fine. When I tell her they speak like daddy, she says excitedly: "I can talk like that!" I managed to get a very nice hotel room, close to where our bus leaves in the morning, and upon arrival the staff promptly gave Zoe a coloring book because she so happily danced to the background music in the lounge. We apparently also got one of the biggest rooms in the hotel, one where we can actually turn around and have our luggage on the floor, contrasting most New York hotel rooms.

But traveling west also means jet lag and although Zoe held on to 7.30pm playing games on the iPad, she woke up already at 2.30am, her regular wakeup time in Europe. And where you would think it is an advantage to have 24 hour television here in the US (broadcasting stops during the night in most of Europe), 3am television turns out not to be very child friendly, even on the cartoon channel. She got really scared by an American Family episode, I really need to be more attentive when we turn on the 'real' TV. So now we have spent 10$ on pay-per-view so she could be entertained while I try to get some work done. Zoe is completely zonked out with red eyes and stumbling around, yet refuses to lie down and relax. I'm not too good myself. But this will pass, I know and we will be fit for everyday life in a couple of days. 

Jetlagged baby, jetlagged mom

A question I often get, both by random people who ask where we have traveled from and people who are planning to travel with their child, is how I deal with Zoe's jet lag. And this is often the phrasing of it: How do you deal with her having jet lag. While I don't disagree much with any of the advice given over at "Have baby, will travel", one of the obvious answers is that you deal with it like you deal with your own. Traveling west, you both wake up 3:40am the first night, 4:30am the next and after three nights you have a fairly normal day. On the way east you get a more extreme sleep pattern, waking up every four or so hours for a couple of days. That said, my best piece of advice is the advice they give to new mothers: Baby sleep, parent sleep. Don't think that you will wake up at 2 am but the child won't. Go to sleep as soon as the child have nudged off, that being 6pm or 11pm. So the question is not how I deal with Zoe's jet lag but how we deal with our jet lag.

And, yes, it is currently 4 am the day after Zoe and I got back to Stockholm and we have been awake both since 2:30 am. Zoe is watching "In the night garden", the most calm children's show I can think of and I hope we can go back to sleep in not too long.

Jetlag and a baby

Since we mainly travel east-west rather than north-south, Zoe has been through more time zones than most 1 year old babies. On our first trip to Sweden when she was only 3 1/2 weeks this was the last thing on my mind because she hardly had any sleeping habits down for nighttime vs. daytime. I was right, she only stayed awake 4 am to 6 am for three nights, together with her equally jetlagged parents. Later on though, I started to worry and search for advice on the wonderfully informative internet. Most articles provided the same piece of advise that they give adults: try to get on the new timezone as quick as possible, but I could not find anything more concrete. Perhaps traveling with babies through timezones was just not that common and nobody really knew anything about it? It turns out that there is another reason few people write about it, which is that it simply isn't that difficult. As it turns out babies adjust to new timezones much quicker than the grownup and because the baby tends to travel with a grownup, who also has jetlag, the grownup's jetlag often takes mental precedence.

When I traveled to Scotland with Zoe on my own, at 6 months, she simply skipped her jetlag all together. When she woke up at night I fed her a bit and she rolled over to her other side and fell asleep again. I, on the other hand, lay awake for 2 hours in the early morning, staring at this magically sleeping baby next to me. When we went to Copenhagen for Christmas, just her and me for the first week, she woke up a couple of nights, scrabbling about in the big bed, clearly tired but unable to sleep, for an hour until she fell asleep on my arm or on my belly. In China when she was 10 months she simply woke up at 4 am for 3 mornings in a row; since I was awake as well we went into the giant bathroom of our hotel room, not to disturb Mark who did not have jetlag, and played until breakfast started at 6 am.

Well, I do have a disclaimer, because I think I have lucked out so far and I am not looking forward to a jetlagged 15 month old when we travel to London in the end of August. Two key things helped: breast feeding and bed sharing. Zoe could always be calmed down by a little 'midnight snack' and she could fall asleep again, right there next to me, while eating. She is now too big to sleep in the same bed as me, mainly because she goes to bed 4 hours before me and is so mobile that I am worried she would fall down, but also because she loves spreading out and a double bed is only a double bed, not a triple bed. But given those two 'secrets', jetlag before 1 was not that bad.