#need a creative outlet to stick a fork into etc etc

[twilightarcade]

whaj twould u draw comic abt

well like everything ever. And other stuff of the sort.

Tangent but like comics specifically because. I suck at writing. It's great! Pretty cool! But I'll never achieve the required eloquence I want. I can pour my heart out on a page all day but that will never be telling a story like I'd like it to be, at least ast long as its short.. also I love visual media especially. Something a teacher would call a visual learner. Both mediums obviously require a lot of care but with comics it feels more like I can skip right to the "meat" (as an english teacher would call it) of the story? Like alright we have some guys they're doing some stuff and I don't have to sit here agonizing over how to describe this guy and what they're doing, I can just.... beam it directly into your brain. How cool is that. And you can add like.... whatever the hell you want. Want a giant rainbow going through half the page? BAM you got it. With writing you can't really do that

Tangent OVER. Honestly anything I can't write really (literally everything). Though, to narrow it down a bit, small scenes that a can't quite capture in writing regardless of how much I try. I don't think I would ever like... make a whole comic series or anything. Moreso use it to capture super specific emotions in a way that doesn't just feel like I'm pouring my heart out on a page with no real motive (but secretly is). I suppose the goal here is to make my feelings consumable or whatever. Capture them into a neat little page that other people can read and go haha at

[gipsytrips]

Around the world with my baby daughter.

Article for traveling parents.

Finally I got just a little bit of free time and maybe I could write several posts about traveling with my baby daughter. Right now we are in Dominican Republic, Thaissia is sleeping and I’m using this bit of time to share our experiences and how we are managing.

From her very early days Thaissia was already traveling around France, and I did write a couple articles devoted to those trips. When she turned 2.5 months, we left France for Saint Petersburg, Russia and then took a train over to Moscow to visit family. Later when she was almost 5 months, we took off to California. At the age of 8 months we were in Dominican  Republic and we are still here spending the winter and traveling around a bit more seriously.

As for flying in airplanes, Thaissia does it like a grown up. She doesn’t cry, sleeps in my arms, eats, plays with me and sometimes wants me to carry her around the cabin so she can look and smile at people. During the flights we never used any baby gear (like infant airplane seat from amazon) except for sling or baby carrier. Her habits and the ability to fly easy can of course change in the future, she might become more capricious and demanding… For now she is fine and it is great.

Lets talk about everyday life on the go and baby travel gadgets. In France and Russia Thaissia was still a little baby and everything was rather simple – elastic (Je porte mon bebe) or cotton sling wrap– Amazonas brand (and no stroller), foldable travel bed-bag (and no separate crib), car seat, baby bath tub with seat or hammock, medicine and first-aid kit, diaper backpack for long walks (I just adapted my regular day backpack for baby needs), blanket on the floor with some toys hanging over it (baby gym). In Petersburg we also had a baby chaise longue at the balcony. Our most important accessory has always been a sling wrap and starting from the age of 6 months we replaced it with baby carrier Ergobaby 360. This thing is vital and super useful for traveling and everyday life. But not all parents got their backs ready, so train yourselves in advance.

When Thaissia learned how crawl, in the States I had to get her some more baby gear… Besides a couple different baby gyms from Ikea, we got a huge blanket on the floor, that would cover almost the entire room, and later I had to buy a spacious 6-panel baby gate (Summer Infant), which I was using as a gate only in order to separate that part of the room where I didn’t want my little one to crawl to… I purchased all kind of baby safety things, but we only used outlet plug covers and mini night light. We have a bunch of other safety gadgets (like cabinet and toilet seat locks, silicone corner protectors), but because of constant traveling and moving from one house to another, we still didn’t have a chance to try all that stuff out. For our beach days I bought a baby tent, but we used it for only about a month, then my baby didn’t want to lie in one place anymore… Also at home we had a fit ball, a great thing for exercises with your baby!

I breast feed, its healthy, pleasant and comfortable, never have to worry about any bottles or formula. In California I started giving Thaissia additional food, so I got a mini blender (380 ml) that can be USB-charged. We used it for 3 months, while I needed to make puree. Now I just use a fork to mash some food in a plate as my baby got 8 teeth.

Sleeping question. We have been co-sleeping from the very beginning. Whatever people may say, it works for us perfectly. So we never had a separate baby bed. Just the first five months Thaissia was sleeping in a foldable baby bed-bag that was standing next to me in a big bed. When we travelled this bed was easily transformed into a diaper bag. Later when my baby grew out of this magic bed, I got a long braided bumper pillow and used it to delimit her space from mine. When we went traveling I didn’t take this pillow with us of course and now I just use rolled towels to separate us in bed. We can sleep without those towels of course but then Thaissia will take the whole bed leaving me on the edge. Also important (if possible) that bed would be a low one and would stand next to a wall on one side and on the other side its good to have a carpet, a blanket or a small mattress, so in case of falling, there would be something soft on the floor.

Here in Dominican Republic Thaissia learnt to sit and stand up practically all at the same time, and looks like soon she will start walking… Also she really loves bathing in the ocean with me! Maybe soon she will also start swimming? J An inflatable sit up bath tub, that I got specially for this trip, only served us for a short time. Now I can take my baby with me in the shower and she can stand there while I wash us (a bit harder to wash her head though). If she needs just a quick rinse, I can do that in the sink. One of my most needed travel gadgets is the pocket waterproof beach blanket with stakes (its super thin and light). We don’t care about wind or sand anymore! Speaking of two main tropical problems – sun and mosquitoes – yes, you do need all kinds of creams and sprays and have to rent a place with nets on windows or at least a mosquito net over the bed. If there is no shade at all where you are walking, you might want to get a small SPF 50 umbrella and/or a pareo to cover up hand and legs of your little one while you carry him or her around. Fast drying wide brim hat and long sleeve rash guard SPF 50 are also a must, as for baby sun glasses you might not be lucky, because your little one might refuse to wear them.

Food theme is particularly interesting when traveling. In California, where we stayed for 3 months in the same place, and I was routinely making porridges and boiled veggies without salt and oil/butter. Now here in Dominican Republic apart from those homemade breakfast porridges I feed Thaissia whatever I have in my plate for dinner (fish, chicken, beef, bread, veggies and of course lots of different fruit!). Sometimes we are still using hard food feeder, but less and less now. An important question is where to sit your baby at home (on the go) and in the restaurant? At home I still use car seat which I got here for everyday use indoors. Here in the house we are renting we happen to have a good size stable kids chair in the kitchen. She can’t still sit in it all by herself of course, but I was able to secure her in it with baby seat strap that I bought on Amazon for this trip. It’s not going to fit every possible chair, but it’s cheap, takes almost no space in your luggage, so you can purchase a couple different models and experiment. How do we eat out?... However we can, we are very creative… If there is a high chair (which is rare) – that’s great, if there isn’t – fine, we will deal with it… We can make our own “baby chair” from several chairs and pillows, and even better if we can eat on some sofa (we do not promise it will be clean afterwards) or at the worst case scenario I can ask restaurant personnel to hold my baby while I quickly devoir food after a long walk… Sometimes it’s a lot more comfortable to eat while standing at the bar and your baby is attached to you in a carrier…

As for baby play yard while traveling, you can make it from whatever stuff you find around – flipped tables and chairs, boxes, pillows, mattresses, suitcase and other barriers… But you little one might learn how to crawl over all that stuff… It’s perfect if while traveling you can rent a one bedroom or a little house (not just a studio), where besides the bedroom, you will also have a living room and separate kitchen. So when you put your baby to sleep, you can sneak out of the room and just sit on the couch in that nice little living room and… write a story in your blog or crochet a new toy.

Toys… A whole separate topic! I crochet toys, and half of our suitcase is taken by toys – crocheted, wooden, rubber (just not plastic), developmental and just funny… You don’t need lots of toys all at once, you need to change them… So we still had to pack quite a lot of toys with us and change them from time to time.

Clothing… I though we could travel with just minimum of clothing. Not really. I think there has to be a good amount of baby clothing so that you would let you little one to get dirty as much as he or she wants. And you can avoid every day washing.

Of course it’s a thousand times easier to travel in three when Thaissia’s dad comes to visit us some place. Here in Dominican  Republic, when three of us traveled around, I had a real holiday! But the two of us, me and my daughter, we can do just fine as well. Yes, I don’t get much time to relax and have to think one step ahead always. Our regular routine day without flying in airplanes, moving to a new place, without equipping the new house with all the necessary things and a baby zone, without going shopping for food and water, without traveling somewhere on local transport (which can be quite authentic, depending on where in the world we are at the moment), without visiting some nice faraway place, like a secluded beach or a national park, etc, etc., can never be dull and boring by definition. Make breakfast (fruits, porridge), and while Thaissia is still eating wash the dishes (or ants and some other tropical insects would come to feast), take everything needed on the beach or on the walk, not forget to put on sunscreen, put up a beach blanket in a good shady spot, sticking in stakes and taking away all rubbish (or whatever is on the ground) so the baby doesn’t eat it, prevent my little one from eating too much sand, find her a company to play with (she is super social and playing with other kids is essential), give her some water, give her a banana or an avocado or something else, give her water again, ouch she fell dooooown…., fold up the blanket and unfold it again in shade, walk a couple kilometers or more with Thaissia in the carrier and then walk back, bathe with her in the ocean (favourite activity!), laugh, “fly’, play while sitting down, “walk”, sing and dance, take a nap at home for a couple hours (while Thaissia is sleeping, if she is in her deep sleep, I can maybe do some stuff on internet, sweep the floor, make a salad, wash my hair, crochet a toy, buy some airlines tickets… etc), feed my baby many times during the day and change her diaper just as many times, take some photos, have a coffee with something sweet, not forget to have dinner and not let Thaissia eat everything from my plate, wash my baby and take a shower myself, wash beach clothing and hang it to dry, read some books with Thaissia and play with her, finally put her to bed and fall asleep myself (or not.. while she is asleep, make some porridge or chicken for tomorrow, do some stuff at the computer, work on pictures from the camera or crochet)… and so on and so forth in different variations, it’s fun.

Is it easy for me? No, absolutely not. But I’m not complaining and not going to talk about those days when it’s super hard, when I have to solve all kinds of problems, when I don’t know where we are going to stay or when am I finally going to get some sleep, for example. Of course it is not like that when we are traveling, but more so when I’m working and Thaissia has to stay with a babysitter (but this is a whole different story)…

I am indeed very very happy and I do everything possible to make Thaissia smile and surprise her all the time. I love her so much and want to show her the whole world! Even though she is so little and doesn’t understand a lot of things (or she understands them in her own way, not like I do), she enjoys the sun and the warm weather, she loves to splash in the ocean and play in the sand, she is curious to see animals and colourful flowers, she adores new tasty foods and really likes to meet people and smile at them! Thaissia is happy when I am happy, and backwards. My baby absorbs everything that is around her and every day she is more and more curious about the world. Also daily she hears all the five languages that I speak.

Finally I would like to note that before I was traveling with an 11-13 kg backpack, now I also got a big suitcase, BUT my daughter and me don’t really need at least one half of this suitcase, and we can kind of do without the second half as well if we try… But in order to be able to travel this light with a baby you have to train. I promise myself that next time our suitcase will be smaller!

So this was a little introduction guide (with lyrical digressions) about everyday life when traveling and baby gadgets for trips. Attaching some photos from California and Dominican Republic. Next posts will be about actual travels around Dominican  Republic.

01-2019. Las Terrenas, Republica Dominicana.