When my baby was born into this world, I was struck with the reality of it all. She is mine, my baby, nobody else’s. It almost felt like a part of one of these reality shows when you get to play a part in someone else’s life for a while, but don’t get too comfortable,  the camera crew are on their way with the annoyingly chatty host.

Our strange existence as modern woman of the 21 century brought many of us to the realization that by the respectable age of 30, we rarely had a chance to handle a newborn, to change his diaper, to feed him or watch him nurse. That was me anyway, a total novice (not to say a nervous wreck). Before my baby was born I wouldn’t have wanted to hold a newborn. I was afraid to break them. I regarded every new, seemingly relaxed new mother with great admiration. “How does she do it?” I asked myself (and her if I gathered enough nerve). They all looked like mother earth to me. Relaxed and natural.

Imagine my surprise when my turn came to play mommy. I knew newborn babies cry. Just not how much. You change them, they cry. You don’t change them, they cry. You dress them, they howl, you undress them, it’s the end of the world as we know it. And don’t get me started with her first baths. My husband actually used his ear plugs. And these were the easy ones. The hardest cases were those in which we had no idea why our little princess is clutching her little fists and screams in rage, for hours at a time. She wasn’t hungry, she wasn’t wet, our home was warm and cozy and she had mommy, daddy and grandma at her disposal. She still cried. A car ride quieted her alright, just until we entered back in the house. A bath? Grandma suggested, and quickly withdrew, seeing our horrified expressions. I rocked her, kissed her, held her, and swore I will never ever touch cabbage again (thinking I caused her gas). Needless to say, I felt like a failure.  Like the worst mother in the world. Where were my motherly instincts when I needed them? Wasn’t this supposed to come naturally? I felt cheated. I was supposed to just “know” what to do, right? Wrong.

Babies cry.

In my not so far days of no babyhood, sitting next to a mother and her baby in an airplane would evoke a panic I could barely contain. Babies cry, make noise, are unpredictable and might do the worst and try to communicate with me. I felt so sorry for myself in these occasions that I never stopped to think of the poor parent.

Have you ever tried to eat a meal from these miniature trays full of unreasonably saucy containers while the plane experiences well timed turbulence? now try to do that balancing a wiggly baby on your lap.

Now what is it with airline attendants? Don’t they have children? Or little nephews or something? In my last air adventure I could have easily refroze my meal with the treatment I got from Ms. Freeze. Call me petty but since I pay about a third of the price of my overpriced ticket for the dubious right to fly with my baby on my lap, the least I expect is some courtesy. No, I take that back, the least I expect is some humanity. It’s a baby for crying out loud. She doesn’t understand your need to pretend to be royalty.

My baby is the best sleeper at home. Just put her in her bed, say good night and leave. wham bam thank you little ma’am. And she is happy. She plays with her toys, vocalises at her bears and puts herself to sleep. Happily. Parent’s heaven. The downsides of that winning lottery ticket are the occasions in which we do not have the luxury of putting her down in a quiet spot. Just try to put her to sleep on your lap. That miniature cuteness transforms in front of your very eyes into Gizmo’s evil twin. She will outlast the most caffeine driven pilot. She just wont sleep. The solution is deceivingly simple. Why not let the single mother sit next to an empty seat? The baby gets to lie down, mommy’s arms wont require physiotherapy later and all the rest of the plane could get some sleep. Right? Wrong. you wont believe the trouble we go through every single time we try to explain that to the airline clerks.

 There are even onboard bassinets meant exactly for that purpose. But bassinets, like water in a fata morgana, have never been further from your reach. No, we do not know if there are any bassinettes available. No, we do not have access for that information. No, you will just have to wait and see for yourself at the check in. Oh Swell, here goes my anti-stress yoga class. What’s the point?

Could anyone explain to me why in our instant access existence, a major airline company cannot reveal to a paying costumer if one of their 3 bassinets (In a 400 seats airbus) is taken or not? And if there are empty seats on the plane, isn’t that in every one’s best interest that the little baby will have a place to crash?

OK, enough said. Consider yourselves warned. One of these days I will just have to start a consumers boycott on these family hostile airlines. And while I’m at it, someone please teach them to prepare a decent cup of coffee.

Now to the point. Your must haves when flying with baby:

** I will not mention the basic stuff like diapers in this list. For a complete “Diaper bag” kit list please see our information archive.

1. Pacifiers. In plural. These tend to fall under the seat and disappear between millions of strange feet. Stock up.

2. A comfortable “hand luggage” size backpack that is also a trolley. A real-life transformer. Meant for these “carry me up, put me down” yo-yo situations.

3. If you are using commercial infant formula, do yourself a favour and pack many small containers with an already measured amount. All you got to do is hand your bottle to an attendant and ask for the right amount of water. Empty your little container into the bottle and shake. There. Done.

4. Ear plugs. If you travel with your partner, one of you could actually get some sleep.

5. A little bag full of new things for your baby to play with. No flashy new toys. Simple stuff like a key chain full of old keys, a colorful plastic wrist watch, a broken cell phone or remote control. Don’t offer that bag until you are very desperate. Don’t ask why. You will thank me later.

4. Pain killers. For you and your baby. You never know.

5. Something familiar for your baby. A teddy-bear perhaps, something she knows well from home. Does the trick at nap time.

As far as I understand, the concept of Bébélogie as a blog has the potential to touch many people. Not to be presumptuous here, or even thinking about inventing a wheel rounder than the wheel, but we do begin to realize that bringing these little creatures up to independence seems to take us on a path quite similar to science.

Is there really another way to be a parent, trial and error? Elimination of what did not work until we do find the right tune or toy. Mind you, it usually end up being that very odd piece of plastic that you have to take the scoop out of in these powdered milk cans or your grocery list.

A constant quest of answering WHY. Why is the baby crying? Why isn’t she eating? Why is she so warm? Why isn’t she sleeping? Why is she having a rash? Why is she chewing on that raw onion, why, why, why? All the time.

My father told me a long time ago that I was asking “why” all the time. He never really told me though that he asked himself why to. I do think though that he might still wonder a lot of “why” about me. Maybe he just got used to it. It still keeps its entire fascinating side though. A marvel of evolution to study for many many years. Studying life, and the first chapter begins with, well, with your wife (well it has to be a woman for now!) disappearing in the bathroom with a little white stick and coming back five minutes later with big, big open eyes. We decided to name that new adventure: Bébélogie. The science of life, or its beginning anyway and what follows after that actually results in a baby and bringing it up to toddler and so on.

I don’t know, Anthropology of youth sounded a bit heavy and long, and most medical terms, well, they are medical terms, subject of practice and it is quite all right, but really there is only a small proportion of the population that are doctors, nurses, and other health specialists. Isn’t it a great idea to have a science for parenting? A place for common people, interested in this magnificent act to bring another life on Earth and love that new person, to share their ideas, their knowledge.

Maybe even, if it goes on, to become a concentrated voice of all that knowledge passed by generation gathered in one easily consulted bank of information. Well, it is a vision of course, I think it is a valuable goal, and it is pretty much what we desire to achieve for and with all of you.

Oh, detail like this. Ayalla and Noa survived their flight over the Atlantic and are now resting a little with my parents before doing another 6h of plane tomorrow. Apparently there has been no casualties on the flights bringing them in and Noa still managed to seduce many other passenger albeit her refusal to sleep and occasional crankiness.

I still did not figure how to put everything quite perfectly like I wish but this thing sure looks good as it is for now.

You see, my wife and I have been working a lot for the last few months on the modeling our brainchild Baby Nomad Ltd. Now, after quite a lot of efforts and bureaucratic adventures (we never really know if the oddly looking plant in the corner isn’t some poor customer that just took root waiting for his turn) and probably 2 or 3% of the rain forest in paper the company is all up and legal.

Hence the joy of having to build up the portal. This blog should be one of the most active component of the site. A place where we will put our daily realisations about parenting and where I will comment and review many of the products surrounding young families at the moment.

Anybody noticed that there are quite A LOT of things you buy or get as gift that you don’t really know how to use or its designer’s main intent? I hope to pass a bit through that and underline the best, absolutely necessary ones. For example that very useful pillow for pregnant women made of 2 triangle part linked by a velcro patch. Brilliant.

I will let my wife, Ayalla, introduce her own type of contribution. Which, if I might steel a scoop, will probably be a good rent on airline companies and their lack of service for ladies with a one year old baby and 13h of flight.