Travels with Zoe, Part 3

Because Zoe is crazy for bubbles (bubbles is one of the handful of words that she says clearly) I recently bought her a spill-proof bubble maker. It’s much like those that we grew up with—a wand gets dipped into soap and a gentle, steady breath creates bubbles—but since she tips and drops the container every three seconds the spill-proof container has already paid for itself in soap. However, we are having some trouble teaching her the art of creating bubbles. She will usually press the wand against her lips. In fact, she seems to like the taste of the soap and will just as often stick the soapy wand into her mouth and suck it like a lollipop as try to create bubbles. At the end of bubble time she always has a soapy film around her mouth. Why is it that I can’t get her to eat her lunch but she will have a second, third, even fourth helping of soap?

Our recent trip to Boston has caused me to reconsider any travel in the near future. The large amount of luggage didn’t bother me. We’ve traveled with her enough that we have that part of traveling under control. But this particular trip had a few quirks.

• We purchased a seat for Zoe, so we were able to spread out, yet my tray still ended up holding all the drinks and snacks. It was inevitable that the entire cup of ginger ale would spill on my crotch.

• We had a crib brought up to our hotel room. I’m not sure why we wasted the space as we could count on one hand the number of hours Zoe spent in it. I guess so I would have something to stub my toe on at three in the morning when I got up to figure out why the room temperature had dropped to minus twenty.

• M&M’s do melt in your hand. And the color is easily transferable.

• I took Zoe on a swan boat ride in the Public Garden. The swan boats take about ten minutes to circle around the duck pond. Two minutes into the ride Zoe was repeating, “Off. Off.”

• After our stay at the hotel we moved to the home of our friends Seab and Ali on the other side of Harvard Square. They have converted their third floor into a private guest suite. It will now be forever remembered as the first place where Zoe fell out of bed.

• We thought the piercing, incessant screaming of the child across the row from us on the return flight would make our sleeping child the darling of the plane; until she threw up. Twice. It was a good thing I had washed the ginger ale off my pants.

But for all the negatives there were twice as many positives. Zoe charmed everyone, was usually on her best behavior, acted cute in front of friends and family, performed all the tricks we have taught her, and did not make the new parents we visited wish they had been more careful.

Recent photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/dbglass/ZoeMichel19thMonth
Buy the book at http://blurb.com/bookstore/detail/193034