Little children can be trusted to cross social barriers. Where adults see these barriers as twelve foot brick walls with barbed wire on top, to children they are imperceptible. Namely when Madeleine asked me in a very loud voice in the bank: “Why does the lady have a big, big tummy?”
Granted, it was true, but perhaps the social graces required in polite society are not yet on our daughter’s register.
We landed at Chicago literally with a bump, after a fairly smooth flight. The girls were pretty well behaved, but it is called cabin fever for a reason. Hyperactive and bored babies and toddlers, though, seem to get back stage passes not available to the rest of the passengers. To Andy’s chagrin this meant a trip to see the captain, and even the chance to sit in his chair and press the buttons, after we had landed, I have to add quickly.
For some reason the children suffer with jetlag on the outbound trip and we tend to suffer on the way back. It took them about five days to get over the six-hour time difference, and of course the girls wake up at different times. Tilda started her day, and ours, at 5am every day for four days but has rewarded us with two days of sleeping through without a feed. Could this be the start of my first regular full night’s sleep since she was born?
We spent the first three nights at the Renaissance hotel in Schaumburg, which was, given our previous experience of American hostelry (non-descript motel), surprisingly pleasant. Cool, interesting architecture, which strangely given the sub-zero temperatures relied on water to cascade along flying buttresses. Needless to say the water has been switched off so the building entrance resembled not much more than a multi-storey car park ramp. Would have been much more interesting to have made use of the freeze and created an ice sculpture. The central atrium within the hotel was decorated in modern chic with interesting furniture and a fantastic fireplace with a huge canopy that you could walk all the way round.
So here we are at the start of a new adventure. When everything is new it’s always exciting. My eyes are open. And how you view your new adventure depends on the filter you put on your eyes. Are we stuck in a grey, flat, icy landscape, thousands of miles and several timezones from our family? Or are we about to discover a new way of life? Let’s see.
Granted, it was true, but perhaps the social graces required in polite society are not yet on our daughter’s register.
We landed at Chicago literally with a bump, after a fairly smooth flight. The girls were pretty well behaved, but it is called cabin fever for a reason. Hyperactive and bored babies and toddlers, though, seem to get back stage passes not available to the rest of the passengers. To Andy’s chagrin this meant a trip to see the captain, and even the chance to sit in his chair and press the buttons, after we had landed, I have to add quickly.
For some reason the children suffer with jetlag on the outbound trip and we tend to suffer on the way back. It took them about five days to get over the six-hour time difference, and of course the girls wake up at different times. Tilda started her day, and ours, at 5am every day for four days but has rewarded us with two days of sleeping through without a feed. Could this be the start of my first regular full night’s sleep since she was born?
We spent the first three nights at the Renaissance hotel in Schaumburg, which was, given our previous experience of American hostelry (non-descript motel), surprisingly pleasant. Cool, interesting architecture, which strangely given the sub-zero temperatures relied on water to cascade along flying buttresses. Needless to say the water has been switched off so the building entrance resembled not much more than a multi-storey car park ramp. Would have been much more interesting to have made use of the freeze and created an ice sculpture. The central atrium within the hotel was decorated in modern chic with interesting furniture and a fantastic fireplace with a huge canopy that you could walk all the way round.
So here we are at the start of a new adventure. When everything is new it’s always exciting. My eyes are open. And how you view your new adventure depends on the filter you put on your eyes. Are we stuck in a grey, flat, icy landscape, thousands of miles and several timezones from our family? Or are we about to discover a new way of life? Let’s see.
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