This post is first in a series describing our three weeks of Spring Travel. In these posts, I am sure you will see just how insane adventurous we are in traveling with two children under the age of 4.
Overview:
We traveled from Home --> Manchester, NH --> Montreal, QC --> Quebec City, QC --> Burlington, VT --> Boston, MA --> Pittsburgh, PA --> Buffalo, NY --> Home
And why, you ask?
Back in July I learned that the Society of Research in Child Development Conference was in Montreal. While I am not working at the moment, this was something I committed to with my last grad student as I was finishing up. Also, when your name gets attached to something, it's good to have some oversight in case of a return to academia in the future.
Also, I want to open my own laboratory preschool, so attending the International Association of Laboratory and University Affiliated Schools Conference in Pittsburgh - directly preceding Spring Carnival weekend - was a damned good idea for me to get some ideas.
These conferences were a couple of weeks apart and we really miss our friends in Boston, so we stopped there on our circular trip.
But that's boring stuff. Let's move on to the trip.
1 week prior to takeoff: I received an email from my graduate student stating that she had a family emergency and that I never got feedback to her about the poster. (except that I did - 3 weeks prior). So, 1 week before the conference, I had to complete the poster and get it printed. This was frustrating because it took vital time away from planning the fun parts of the trip. So we sort of ended up winging it.
2 days prior to takeoff: Logan jacks up his leg going down the f*#&ing slide at the playground. We spent the day visiting the pediatrician and getting X-rays, only for them to tell us that it doesn't appear broken, but infants sometimes require a few days for the bone to split. WONDERFUL. Logan was miserable and frustrated, wouldn't walk, but still tried to climb everything in sight, leaving me with not a lot of time to pack.
March 30: The flight to Boston was OK (flights to BOS were a TON cheaper than flying directly to Montreal and we needed a car for the duration of the trip anyway), but it was the ride to the hotel in Manchester, NH that was eventful. The idea to stay in Manchester for the night was, in theory, brilliant. We landed at 10pm local time and got the rental car. The idea was that the kids would pass out in the car on the way up to Manchester, which would get them closer to East Coast time.
FAIL.
Instead, since we somehow forgot to get Lance food on the plane when we got food for me and the kids, he was hungry. But of course NOTHING was open outside the airport. Finally we found a late-night McDonald's (somewhere near Malden, MA - hi Justin & Saru!) that only had a drive thru open. We got the food and figured that we were in the clear and that the food would help RJ get less cranky and fall asleep (RJ often gets cranky when he's hungry and he was due for a snack based on when he last ate). Except that RJ was really upset because he was carsick. We parked about a millisecond too late. Puke was all over his jacket, the carseat, and the seat of the rental car. And he did NOT want to drive ANYWHERE. There were hotels in sight, but not ours, which was still far away in New Hampshire. I have to plug the Earth's Best Baby Wipes at this point, because they played a large role in our cleanup effort. They are actually a little soapy and pretty thick. I use cloth wipes at home, but usually use Seventh Generation, Full Circle, or Lansinoh wipes in the diaper bag. These were at Babies R Us when I picked up the G-diaper inserts for the trip and BOY was I glad I picked them on a whim!
After cleaning up in the freezing cold parking lot, we finally convinced RJ to get back in the car and Daddy promised to drive slow so he wouldn't get sick. Thankfully, it worked and we made it to Manchester, where our kids proceeded to keep us up til 2am. So much for moving to East Coast time, as we were on Hawaii time! We almost missed the complimentary breakfast (thank you wonderful lady who hooked us up with more food than we could possibly eat after breakfast ended!), and Logan was still in a lot of pain after 3 days, when the pediatrician told us that if it was a sprain he should feel better in a few days.
So, Next stop:
The Elliot Hospital Pediatric ER to get another X-ray
Several hours later, we had a CD with Logan's X-ray, which still showed that it was not broken, and Logan was splinted in what was termed a "half cast" or "soft-cast", meaning that I could take it off for bath. Or, as it turned out, he could crawl out of it unless it was heavily taped to his sock.
We got back to the car and realized that my phone battery was dead. I plugged it in to the charger and even after it charged, the screen wouldn't come on. A visit at the local Verizon store confirmed that yes, the only phone that we added the international plan to, died hours before leaving the country and of course there was NOTHING they could do because we didn't have the insurance and I wasn't due for a new phone until November. Since buying a new one outright was not an option, we were about to go on the trip the old-fashioned way - WITHOUT smart phones (insert scary music).
So with a broken kid, a whiny kid, discouraged adults, and a broken phone, we drove up to Montreal much later than expected. And like clockwork, once getting into Quebec and clearly on a rural highway through small-town Quebec, RJ announced that he had to go potty. And of COURSE the kid had to take a shit. We thankfully found a completely French Speaking diner that let him use the potty and Lance managed to buy a piece of pie with American Dollars because he didn't just want to let RJ take a dump in their potty and run.
We got to our hotel and the kids had yet another late night.
And my poster presentation (my grad student did end up cancelling her trip to Montreal due to her family emergency, so I was stuck presenting her work as well as creating the poster of it) was of course at 8am the next morning.
Stay tuned for Volume 2: Montreal, QC.
Overview:
We traveled from Home --> Manchester, NH --> Montreal, QC --> Quebec City, QC --> Burlington, VT --> Boston, MA --> Pittsburgh, PA --> Buffalo, NY --> Home
And why, you ask?
Back in July I learned that the Society of Research in Child Development Conference was in Montreal. While I am not working at the moment, this was something I committed to with my last grad student as I was finishing up. Also, when your name gets attached to something, it's good to have some oversight in case of a return to academia in the future.
Also, I want to open my own laboratory preschool, so attending the International Association of Laboratory and University Affiliated Schools Conference in Pittsburgh - directly preceding Spring Carnival weekend - was a damned good idea for me to get some ideas.
These conferences were a couple of weeks apart and we really miss our friends in Boston, so we stopped there on our circular trip.
But that's boring stuff. Let's move on to the trip.
1 week prior to takeoff: I received an email from my graduate student stating that she had a family emergency and that I never got feedback to her about the poster. (except that I did - 3 weeks prior). So, 1 week before the conference, I had to complete the poster and get it printed. This was frustrating because it took vital time away from planning the fun parts of the trip. So we sort of ended up winging it.
2 days prior to takeoff: Logan jacks up his leg going down the f*#&ing slide at the playground. We spent the day visiting the pediatrician and getting X-rays, only for them to tell us that it doesn't appear broken, but infants sometimes require a few days for the bone to split. WONDERFUL. Logan was miserable and frustrated, wouldn't walk, but still tried to climb everything in sight, leaving me with not a lot of time to pack. 
March 30: The flight to Boston was OK (flights to BOS were a TON cheaper than flying directly to Montreal and we needed a car for the duration of the trip anyway), but it was the ride to the hotel in Manchester, NH that was eventful. The idea to stay in Manchester for the night was, in theory, brilliant. We landed at 10pm local time and got the rental car. The idea was that the kids would pass out in the car on the way up to Manchester, which would get them closer to East Coast time.
FAIL.
Instead, since we somehow forgot to get Lance food on the plane when we got food for me and the kids, he was hungry. But of course NOTHING was open outside the airport. Finally we found a late-night McDonald's (somewhere near Malden, MA - hi Justin & Saru!) that only had a drive thru open. We got the food and figured that we were in the clear and that the food would help RJ get less cranky and fall asleep (RJ often gets cranky when he's hungry and he was due for a snack based on when he last ate). Except that RJ was really upset because he was carsick. We parked about a millisecond too late. Puke was all over his jacket, the carseat, and the seat of the rental car. And he did NOT want to drive ANYWHERE. There were hotels in sight, but not ours, which was still far away in New Hampshire. I have to plug the Earth's Best Baby Wipes at this point, because they played a large role in our cleanup effort. They are actually a little soapy and pretty thick. I use cloth wipes at home, but usually use Seventh Generation, Full Circle, or Lansinoh wipes in the diaper bag. These were at Babies R Us when I picked up the G-diaper inserts for the trip and BOY was I glad I picked them on a whim!
After cleaning up in the freezing cold parking lot, we finally convinced RJ to get back in the car and Daddy promised to drive slow so he wouldn't get sick. Thankfully, it worked and we made it to Manchester, where our kids proceeded to keep us up til 2am. So much for moving to East Coast time, as we were on Hawaii time! We almost missed the complimentary breakfast (thank you wonderful lady who hooked us up with more food than we could possibly eat after breakfast ended!), and Logan was still in a lot of pain after 3 days, when the pediatrician told us that if it was a sprain he should feel better in a few days.
So, Next stop:
The Elliot Hospital Pediatric ER to get another X-ray
Several hours later, we had a CD with Logan's X-ray, which still showed that it was not broken, and Logan was splinted in what was termed a "half cast" or "soft-cast", meaning that I could take it off for bath. Or, as it turned out, he could crawl out of it unless it was heavily taped to his sock. We got back to the car and realized that my phone battery was dead. I plugged it in to the charger and even after it charged, the screen wouldn't come on. A visit at the local Verizon store confirmed that yes, the only phone that we added the international plan to, died hours before leaving the country and of course there was NOTHING they could do because we didn't have the insurance and I wasn't due for a new phone until November. Since buying a new one outright was not an option, we were about to go on the trip the old-fashioned way - WITHOUT smart phones (insert scary music).
So with a broken kid, a whiny kid, discouraged adults, and a broken phone, we drove up to Montreal much later than expected. And like clockwork, once getting into Quebec and clearly on a rural highway through small-town Quebec, RJ announced that he had to go potty. And of COURSE the kid had to take a shit. We thankfully found a completely French Speaking diner that let him use the potty and Lance managed to buy a piece of pie with American Dollars because he didn't just want to let RJ take a dump in their potty and run.
We got to our hotel and the kids had yet another late night.
And my poster presentation (my grad student did end up cancelling her trip to Montreal due to her family emergency, so I was stuck presenting her work as well as creating the poster of it) was of course at 8am the next morning.
Stay tuned for Volume 2: Montreal, QC.
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