Air travel, potty learning, and a bit of an update

I haven’t posted in ages. I keep meaning to do some sort of update, but there is so much more to say now that J is older and doing all kinds of exciting things, and I can’t decide what to write about. And more importantly, I just haven’t had time. We’ve just done our bi-annual move from our warm-season abode into our apartment in the city (in my mom and step-dad’s house), and are preparing to go to New Zealand for 7 weeks. Meanwhile, D is working on two academic editing contracts (one of her two jobs that allows us to escape for the winter – the ‘pro’ side of precarious contract/seasonal employment) and J has unequivocally dropped down to a single nap. I’ve been simultaneously unpacking and packing and also trying not to cry about the dystopian disaster that is the U.S. election; it’s not my country, but my heart hurts nonetheless, for all of the Americans that I care about and also for the world in which my kid is going to grow up.

And so, an update in bullets, which is the best I can do:

• We aren’t going to be able to try to get pregnant on this trip – the timing is just off. It sucks that it isn’t going to work, but J is cutting molars and I feel okay about waiting before enlisting for more sleep deprivation.

• J will be 15 months in 9 days. She is running, walking backward, turing in circles, doing somersaults, climbing, testing limits, having meltdowns, hitting and occasionally biting when she’s upset, and using well over 50 words and a few two-word phrases. She’s very into animals, dinosaur figures, books (she’ll sit for half and hour to listen to stories), music, being outside, being chased, and food. She calls us ‘mama’ and ‘mum mum’ but if she is calling us from the other room, she uses our first names – probably in imitation of us.

• She’ll eat anything, and often eats the same thing as us which makes things easier. Despite eating like a horse, she’s still on the small side (28.5 inches and just over 20 pounds) which makes sense given that D and KD are both small. Quite a lot of her 6-12 month clothing still fits her, and her feet are just growing into size 5 shoes.

• Yesterday, J fed the cat. She walked over to the food tin, opened it, scooped out the food, and put it in the cat’s dish. This is so representative of how things seem to go with her – she surprised us all the time by doing things we had no idea she could do. She tried to feed the cat a couple more times. They are clearly in cahoots.

• J is close to using the potty consistently. Some days, she only uses the potty; some days, she wets her training pants once or twice. I’m still kind of surprised that this happened. We were getting her to sit on the potty from about 8 months to help with constipation, but then suddenly she started peeing on it. Around 13 months, she started hiding to poo, and then coming to tell us that she’d pooped. Now, she’ll often tell us that she has to use the potty by saying  ‘puh’ (potty) or ‘poo’, or by taking herself to the potty. She still needs help with her clothing, but it’s quite nice having so much less diaper laundry to deal with. I thought the move into town would through things off, but it hasn’t – she seems to want to stick with this, but we’re trying to be neutral about it because she is so young and we don’t want to pressure her. We’ll see how she does after the flight to NZ. We’ll be taking both training pants and diapers, just in case. And ‘Everyone Poops’, her favourite bathroom reading material.

• We leave for NZ in 9 days. We are packing plenty of snacks, toys, books, and changes of clothes. This flight is always rough for me (the fixed position and lack of sleep exacerbate my chronic pain and leave me very sore for days, and the jet lag doesn’t help) and I’m really anxious about doing this with a toddler. Usually I take a sedative but I don’t feel comfortable doing that with J there. If anyone has any tips on how to survive 24+ hours of travelling with a toddler, I’m all ears. I have no idea how she’ll handle it, but I am wary. J’s never even been on a long car trip. We don’t do screen time other than Skype, but may make an exception on the flight and let her watch… something? I don’t even know what’s out there, really. Any recommendations?

That’s all I’ve got. Going to try to drink my tea before my wee one wakes up.