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September 2012 Moms
Living far away from family (slight rant)
I'm starting to go a little crazy. Everyone keeps asking me if we plan to come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas...when our baby will only be 2 or 3 months. The idea is TOTALLY ridiculous to my husband and I -- first time parents with nooooo interest in international travel with such a small baby (who,btw, won't even have a freakin passport by then). Yet, our families keep bringing it up.
Honestly, I can't think of anything more stressful. Plus, even if we have a perfect routine-loving kid, he/she is still going to be on a schedule with a 6 hour difference. I can't imagine how miserable that would make all of us.
Any advice for dealing with totally unreasonable requests? Apparently a simple "not going to happen" isn't enough. People just keep bringing it up.
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Re: Living far away from family (slight rant)
I would offer to host both Thanksgiving and Christmas at your house.
I would never travel internationally with a 3 month old. Hell, I'm not even driving four hours away to see my family for Christmas. I did that once when DD was 2 1/2 months and it was the worst experience. Never again. So, I figure that I'll open my doors and invite my family. If they want to come, fine, and if not I'll really enjoy having low-key, drama free holidays this year.
This.
I'd even add, "You can't imagine how beautiful Italy is for Christmas!" or something equally sugary snarky.
6 hours and international travel are pretty big deals. Much moreso than a 2 hour domestic flight or short road trip. There's nothing wrong with saying no right now. You can always plan something for next year when the baby is older and the weather is better. We'll probably be heading "home" for Christmas assuming the baby is doing well (we also live pretty far away from the rest of family). It's a 3 hour domestic flight, so hopefully it will be more manageable.
my response to my sister (who i can be snarky with) was "well, why don't you and your new little girl come here for christmas instead?" she's due a few weeks after me. that shut her up :-)
Check out my blog: La Vita e Bella
We applied for her passport when she was 5w and it arrived 2 weeks later. We also added her to DH's italian passport in one day.
I travelled with her bucket seat (just gate checked the frame of the stroller) and have a PnP and a monitor system at my parents'. We always buy her a seat on the plane. Our next trip she was 18m (my parents came to Italy twice in the interim) and at that point she was walking so we really needed to entertain her on the plane and her nap schedule was all messed up, not to mention the falling asleep in the middle of the day and waking up in the middle of the night in NY! We repeated the trip at 21m then again at 31m. Our last trip was last month at 3y2m. She's an expert traveller now.
We have a convertible car seat and a stroller at my parents' house. We use a CARES harness on the plane and an RSTV in the taxi to get to the airport train station now.
Our first trip as a family of 4 will actually be for Christmas. DC2 is due 9/20 so s/he will be about 12w. I'll likely delay the mandatory vaccines until we get back (or to them at 10w). I'd actually prefer going for T-giving (cheaper airfare and how I miss American t-giving!) but my DH can't take off from work then.
I know that's not what you asked but I thought I'd share my experience.
You could always say you prefer not to travel during flu season with a little one.
If it's possible for you to host, it sounds like a great idea for you to turn the invitation around and have them come to you.
~ TTC cheerleader for the fabulously wonderful j&a09 ~
~ Much love and many prayers to Panderp ~
Baby Blog ..... BFP Chart
My thoughts exactly