Baby Travels

I'm guessing that F leading the race for Most Traveled Baby On The Planet. At last tally, this baby had been on 21 airplanes by the time she was 8 1/2 months old. She's so savvy, we stand in line at security and she takes her own shoes off.

Ok, her shoes are actually socks made to look like shoes and she takes them off everywhere, but the point is, this girl knows the drill.

That said, I've learned that traveling with a 3 month old is a whole different sack of potatoes than traveling with a 9 month old. At 3 months, she slept. At 9 months, she parties. Hard. She's so squirmy that, short of a few squats, I got a full on Turbo Kick workout on the way home from Guadeloupe last month.

As if that weren't daunting enough she's started teething in the past couple days and LORDY it's a wild ride.

With this in mind as I prepare for our upcoming trip to Turkey, I've begun early to arm myself with possible protection against my little whirling dervish.

1. Boon Baby Squirt Spoon: Gastronomic Genius for Feeding Fledglings.

Felicity has only eaten one jar of store bought baby food in her entire long life, but this sucker looks like it's too travel friendly to pass up. You stuff the squishy handle full of pureed food. When you've identified a local hungry baby, you squeeze the handle which deposits the baby food directly onto the bowl of the spoon. Then, when you're finished, you can put the little cap right back on the spoon and store the rest for later. This process makes the baby feeding much more efficient, but getting the food into the baby's belly and not just all over the rest of the plane is still not guaranteed.

2. Flyebaby For My Baby. Maybe:
Luckily, F is extremely social and views plane rides as one big campaign stop on her way to Empress of the World. While I'm struggling to herd our bags, our other people and F down the length of the plane (we're unerringly in THE LAST row of every flight), she's busy literally shifting from side to side making eye contact with each passenger so she can give them a personalized smile, giggle or wave. You think I'm exaggerating. I'm not.

However, she is the squirmiest baby I've ever met. The above pictured Flyebaby is advertised as a way for Mama and Baby to get some good face time during the flight while Baby rests comfortably in a gently swinging hammock.

Me, I'm just looking forward to those straps! Lockdown will be sweet.

3. Enlisting Solid Help

This will be the fourth trip to Turkey for P and me, but this year we are bringing along some backup. Not only will my sister be joining us, but we're also taking HC out of school for the two weeks we'll be gone. She's great with the baby, but more importantly, she might learn a thing or two about Turkey!

Wish me luck and pass the Baby Benedryl.