There's No Place Like home! Part Kaks

Kaks means 2 in Estonian.

12 months is Kaksteist Kuud.  I'll let you say that out loud a few times.  hehehehe

Now, as I was saying.

Things I CAN wait for:

The looooooong flight... with 2 connections... with an 8 month old in tow.  I used to be a flight attendant (that's what they are called Nan) albeit very briefly.  And flights with lil kids were not fun.  And these flights were 15 minutes long.  Yes, I was more of a bus-conductor really.  Hello, hello, hello, hello, hi, hi, hello, hi... tug dummy life vest, point at the floor... good bye, good bye, bye, good bye, bye, bye... all with plastered Miss Universe smile... 8 times a day... roughly every half hour.  fun.  But I digress.  

The excitement of being on a plane lasts for a few very short minutes.  And let's hope that we get excitement and not all out fear of the huge noisy thing crammed with complete strangers who are giving off  ''Oh God, I hope that baby isn't sitting next to me'' vibes.  I'm pretty sure babies and kids do not like flights any more than the adults who have to sit squooshed up next to big fat guys.  But unlike the adults who can get drunk, sleep, play cards, read a book, try to hook up with other passengers, apply for the mile-high club etc, the lil angels kinda just have to suffer through it.  And they let us know this... us and everybody else in a 5 mile radius of the plane.  So yeah, I'm trying to get prepared mentally for a rough 9 hours.  And that's just on 1 flight.  We get to take 3.  And then we get to do it again to come back.  Any tips... pleeease feel free to let me know!

Being judged on my mommy-skills.  So far, living like a hermit has made it possible to partially escape the barrage of unsolicited advice, and tsk-tsk-tsks about my choices.  Like any mother, I am trying to do the best I can with the information I have available... and Lord knows I spend most of the Angel's nap times reading everything I can about child development.  Such a fascinating topic!!  And it does make you aware of the myriad of theories out there... some of it really quack... like the she-devil Gina Ford who boasts about how she starves babies into submission so that she can get them on a minute-by-minute schedule.  Her book was a best-seller too.  Poor babies.  I got her book as a well-meaning gift.  I don't have it anymore, and unless the dudes at the dump are wondering how to schedule their babies, in English, I have hopefully saved at least one baby from that horrid fate.

Again with the digression... back to what I was saying.

I hope I can handle being told that I am spoiling her, or that she should be sleeping through the night, or that I am crazy to still have her next to me at night, or that I should be bottle-feeding her or that I have in some other way ensured that she will forever remain my siamese twin.  I hope that I can smile gracefully, say ''Thanks, I'll think about it'' and sit on my desire to defend myself to the death... as I am often want to do.

I also hope that I don't do that to others.

Coming back to Tallinn.  The last time I did that, I left the warm, vibrant, musical, sunny shores of my beautiful and tasty country, and arrived, at the dreary, forever midnight, forever eating potatoes and white sauce, forever cold, dead of Tallinn's winter.  Gosh, it feels heavy just thinking about it.  But thankfully this time we will be coming back in summer.  And summer is beautiful here.  Everything is green and flowery and pretty... even the people :)  Everybody is happy, albeit half-naked and laying about on any and every patch of grass they can find.  Tallinn comes to life in summer.  So this time coming back won't be so bad.  But I know I will be sad to leave everybody again.

All in all, the good outweighs the bad right!  One thing about being so far away, it definitely makes you appreciate home.