Flight to Guangzhou

Sorry everyone!

We have been super busy! (As you can probably imagine!- especially being new to all this!)

We are in Guangzhou now. We flew in Saturday. We survived our first plane ride. Of course this one was only 2 hours long, but it was a good trial run to see how it is going to go for the long ride home.

Scott and I were seated one in front of the other. For our in-China flights we only have "lap seats" for the boys. It was nice that each of us had an empty seat in between us and the passenger by the window. Both of us being on the aisle was great as well. More so for me as I had Zachary who is a little bit fussier and I had to get up and walk him a couple of times as he gets antsy just sitting. I had a really nice gentleman sitting in the row with us. He played w/ Z a lot during the flight. He also didn't gag when right after takeoff Z made a real stinker. (Though the person in the aisle accross from me was according to Scott who had a good view of him while I was focused on changing Z's diaper and getting the smell gone ASAP!) It was a small plane and I decided since there was an empty seat to just lay Z accross the two seats and change his diaper right there. I apologized in Mandarin (yeah...one of the phrases I know!) even though this gentleman spoke quite a bit of English to me afterwards. At that point I didn't know he spoke English and I was very proud of myself for remembering the right words. I know I got it right because he answered "that's ok" back to me.

So I now can mark that off on my list of things I have accomplished as a new Mom... changing a diaper on a plane.

We thought we would get lucky and have the boys sleep during the flight as it was their nap time anyway, but no go. They also were supposed to have one of their "solid meals" on the plane, but we decided to flip their schedule around and do one of their bottles of formula at the meal time and then later at the formula time do a more solid meal. That did work out fine. On advice of other BTDT mom's we picked up a thermos here at the lotus center on one of our shopping trips.

side note:
*The Lotus Center is supposed to be a grocery store. I guess it is if you shop at a Super Walmart. It had everything-even more than Walmart! It is more like a small mall. The cool thing was that it was 4 stories high. Let's see if I can remember what was on all the floors. 1st floor jewelry...we skipped that floor as we were on a baby survival mission. 2nd floor groceries. It was fun seeing a lot of the brands you know but on Chinese labels. 3rd floor Ithink that is where we found the baby formula. There were certain things that had to be paid for in that area and other things that you could take floor to floor and just pay for at the end. It was very interesting. 4th floor diapers ,wipes and a ton more stuff of course- if I am remembering correctly. Baby formula -pay right there! Luggage-right there. Back pack-right there. Batteries, diapers, wipes, water, food, baby pants- all could wait to the end to pay. We were in there for 1 1/2 hrs on our first trip and that was not enough. We could have spent about 4 hrs just looking at everything. I went back seperately to pick up a bigger pack of diapers- ha ha and to see if they had instant oatmeal. No such luck on that. Though they do have oreos, pringles, lots of junk food that we see at home. I finally found a bag that our rep said was wheat. Seeing that it was in a bowl, I was thinking cream of wheat...not quite, it was just a bit thicker than formula and had a few oatmeal like flakes of wheat. It works for one of their meals, but I tasted it....yuck! and I eat just about every hot type of cereal out there. (I have been accused of eating hot bird seed)

Ok, back on topic....
So we got a thermos and once through the security we filled it (w/scalding hot water) from one of the hot water stations in the airport. We also bought some cold bottled water so we could mix their bottles to the right temp. That way, we wouldn't have to rely on the airline to make us hot water exactly when we needed it. They might do it, or they might be too busy so we played it safe and prepared that way. All in all, the flight went smoothly. They were not bothered by the air pressure changes. Even with the two of them having pretty nasty colds. We at that point were battling snoogery noses that changed from stuffy to runny. We had brought children's meds from home and were dosing according to their (future) pediatrician and it was helping, but not quite enough.

They both started to fall asleep right as we were about to land. We wore our ergo's for carrying throughout the airport which again worked out great except being very HOT! Ergo now makes a "sport" version. I am wondering if it truly is any cooler. If anyone out there is thinking about one I'd say give it a shot as the regular ones are super hot. It's like strapping a heater to your stomach when you put on a little 20+ pounder!

Oh... as far as suitcases on the in-China flight....they don't count the # of bags, just weight. Overall each adult is allowed 20(kg's I think....works out to 44lbs ) and lap tickets are allowed 10kg. If you are over in weight you just pay a not very expensive fee. BUT......I would highly advise going as light as possible from home because you are sure to pick up more stuff at every stop! We had to pay on our flight from Beijing to Zhengzhou, but since we gained the weight limit for the two boys we didn't have to pay even though I had picked up a suitcase (which I bought at the lotus center of course )to hold the boys diapers, formula, food, etc.

Last notes on the airport the baggage carts are free and it is interesting going through security screening (at that point our interpretor was no longer with us) when they are asking you to do something and you don't understand them...and of course while holding a squirming child!