This is somewhat related to nursing in a roundabout way...
Some people know I went to Vancouver for our X-mas holidays. I was
travelling alone with my daughter, Sandrine, who was 21 mos. Our flight
was about 30-40 min. late leaving Montréal, and late therefore getting
into Toronto. The flight from Toronto to Vancouver was already full,
overbooked, and we didn't have a seat on it. They put me on the next
flight that evening as "standby" saying it would be a miracle if we got
on it as there were 80 people standing by. I was actually fine with
this, as I figured they'd put me up in Toronto for the night and I could
get an early flight out in the morning. I was intending on surprising
my parents by arriving a day early, so they wouldn't be worried anyhow,
or even expecting me yet.
We ended up getting seats on the late-night flight (the "miracle"),
except it too was late departing...a whole 1.5 hours late leaving
Toronto. We didn't get into Vancouver International Airport until 1:30
am. Since I hadn't told my parents we would be there that day (original
estimated time or arrival was about 9 pm, a perfectly reasonable time of
the day), I thought I wouldn't bother them at such a horrible time of
morning. There were quite a few people lying on benches in the airport
trying to catch a bit of sleep. We went to eat, because Sandrine had
slept all the way over, was wide awake by the time we de-planed, and I
was hungry. After that, I found an area of carpet and laid out my sling
as well as another baby carrier and my jacket for padding for us to lie
on, but Sandrine just wanted to get up and go "visit" with the other
people who were trying to sleep! I thought we'd never get to sleep. It
was now 2:30 am. She would cry if I tried to get her to lie down which
I was scared was bothering the other people around us.
All of a sudden, I had a flash of ingienuity (sp?). I was seeing, near
the children's play-area, one of those plastic signs with a bottle on it
(argh!) denoting the presence of a baby room. I knew that some of the
baby rooms here in Québec are quite nice, and even have comfortable
lazyboy-type chairs to nurse in (along with microwaves...obviously for
the nursing moms' tea...not!). I thought maybe that would do...and if I
could close the door, we'd at least be in private and she'd have a
better chance of going to sleep. Then I could get back down on the
floor to sleep myself.
I was not prepared for what I saw when I entered that room. Ok, there
was one mangey-looking rocking chair which was actually broken and
didn't rock...but aside from that, there were *4* cribs and a
playpen!!! My second flash of genius hit me for that evening (which was
quite a feat given my 15 hours of travel with a crabby almost-2-year old
and my own fatigue); I took 2 mattresses out of the cribs, laid them on
the floor (they had sheets on them), found that there was a real light
switch I could turn out (which I did) and not long later we were both
sound asleep this time with my sling and coat over us! I woke at 4:30,
5:30 and 6:30 (it wasn't the most restful sleep I'd ever had) and then
took the city busses with 2 large suitcases (on wheels) and my daughter
in her watchtower backpack. But for anyone travelling with infants (and
I'm sure I'd have done the same had I thought of it, if I were in a
similar situation with a tiny baby), check out those nursing rooms, you
never know what you might find! They could probably use fewer cribs and
more rocking chairs or maybe a real adult-sized bed, but all in all it
certainly did the job with a bit of brain power added.
;-)
Fio.
Mama to Sandrine Leïlou, 13/03/00
(PS my parents WERE pleasantly surprised to see us appear on their
doorstep at 7:15 am when they were getting ready for work!)
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