The Creation of Spoiled Rotten Bed & Breakfast: Traumacare Recovery While Traveling with Grandma

When you've been through trauma as I have for the last couple of weeks, 47 days to be exact, and you make it through, you just look at life differently. These last couple of weeks I've been in crisis care and I didn't want to tell any of you about it. I know you would all understand but I had to do this alone.

You know of course that I'm talking about visiting my twin grand baby toddlers in Australia right? Oh, they change the way you look at life, seriously. Twins make you be "on" every waking minute of the day and every sleeping hour of the day that you never recover so your immune system is trashed and vulnerable and falls apart so your holidays are trashed and every one after.

Now, full disclosure, when I am with the babies, I know who is who. One is a gentle giant and one has lungs on her not common with little people but on my cell phone video chat and in photos, I have a very hard time discerning who is who because their heads are itty bitty. I can only guess which one is which and in the past, it was easier because one always seemed so serious but now that has changed. Nevertheless, who could think of resisting these irresistible toddlers?

Happy

I'm sick...just leave me alone!

In Tasmania, Cradle Mountain in the cold drizzle was a nightmare and the scene of ground zero for the colds; for 12 out of the 14 days that I was with them they were sick with a cold. When I would pick them up, one would cough in my mouth, the other would sneeze in my mouth and I'm sure when I put them both down, they would race off to the bathroom to lick my toothbrush, ensuring that if they were miserable, so too would Grandma be. Their's was not your typical horrifying man cold. Rather,think of 2 rivers of gooey slime in a continuous fountain followed by simultaneously coughing machines who rarely, if ever, stop crying baby colds. These are much much worse than the average human cold because they cannot say what's bothering them and you can only guess and it's times TWO but other than that, my God they were precious and unlike most other vacations, I WOULD do it again in a heartbeat.

The most wonderful moment everyday was hearing one wake up before the other and rushing in after putting my cape on to save the day and give my daughter a few more minutes of sleep while her hubbie snuck out at Odarkhundred to go to work. Quietly opening the door to see a happy face look at me and light up and arms go up in the air and then wrapping around my neck as tight as a baby boa constrictor dressed up as a tiny little monkey. That's my favorite moment in history, my new happy place.

You would think it would be twice a good with two raising their arms but you'd be wrong. That's a lot of extra weight and body misalignment as you put them both on each hip and pray one doesn't scratch the others in the eye and bite the first one and kick the second one and you don't get caught in the crossfire.

I arrived and had one day to recover with two little girls who looked at me with distrust at the airport but like all twins, when a stranger puts her arms out to lift them up, their arms automatically go up to hug whatever stranger danger is offering love or food.

My first real night with the babies had them shrieking from 11 p.m. to 3:59 a.m when they fell asleep for 1 minute until it was time to wake them up to catch the early flight out. As a grandma and a mother every nerve in my body is awake when they are awake and unhappy so it was a rough night. I hated to hear them so unhappy.

Airports used to be a place of exploration and relaxation until now. We each took one and mine wanted to run up and down the stairs, step on the table to make a phone call on the public phone, play with the vending machine and cry lots if I deviated from her list of unspoken demands.

Traveling with children is a nightmare for many people, grandma and mother included. On the plane over from Canada, it was full of screaming babies but knowing how much I missed my grand babies, the sound of a thousand babies encompassed me like a womb knowing I would soon be reunited. There was a man beside me looking so distraught and feeling like it was the end of the world. Let's be honest, sometime they're the weaker sex. I tried to walk him through it but you'd never have to do that with another woman. They understand. They have been thru it. They have your back but I do think this guy was looking under his seat for a parachute or a raft boat so he could "jump ship".

When we flew to Tasmania the four of us, it was for a one-hour descent into hell, with Beelzebub and Damian strapped to our seat belts. And then the shrieking started and the trading back and forth and the food trough came out of the suitcases, handbags and knapsacks, to cram something down their gullets long enough to keep them chewing, but not enough to choke them and cause even more screaming and hold off the angry mob on the plane. That in itself would rival the most intense of aerobic workouts on the planet. No point in having a shower before a flight with a baby on your lap. The looks of contempt from the young ones and the male counterparts, frightening... mutiny. You could always count on a woman to just smile sweetly as they remembered their own horrific travels with babies and are counting their blessings because they're not doing it again. There's a statistic that says 89% of travel with toddlers is with the mother; that means men rarely have the courage to attempt this feat, like childbirth. Okay I made up that statistic but I would weakly stand behind it.

I remember a horror story back in the military days when the families were being transferred overseas and before boarding, they all gave their ankle biters Gravol to put them to sleep. Unfortunately, the flight was delayed four hours and the kids all slept peacefully in the Canadian terminal only to be wide awake for the long, long flight over- every parent's nightmare. So, back to me being a grandma.

In the beautiful capital of Hobart, the grandma owning the Airbnb had exactly one bubble making lawn mower and one Etch-a-Sketch. What monster landlady does that to twins. You can imagine the tortures each of the twins came up with to outsmart the other; unfair play and biting was always an option.

We navigated the neighbourhood with the two person stroller but reached

an impasse between mom and the all-knowing grandma. If we went all the way down hill to the city center, there would have to be an up and there was no way I was working that hard on vacation. It would have rivaled the aerobic workout on the plane. Grandma won and I know, secretly, mom was relieved. I know she will have it put on her gravestone that she would have loved to have done the down-Everest of hills but her mommy robbed her of that honour.

I got my own room at the Randal Cliff Airbnb but grandmas hear everything. The first peep out of them had me rushing to look after the crying one whom I took to bed and let her sleep on my chest -big mistake, huge mistake of the caliber as seen in Pretty Woman. You can't breathe or move a muscle for hours or you might wake up the Beast until finally can't handle it anymore and you toss them to the side and gasp for air, knowing your day has started.

Food was a huge issue on this trip and of course the lack of ability to communicate.Their favorite word was "Ada Ada Ada ADA!!!!!!" which meant they were either hungry, feed me, or FEED ME NOW with a look of murder in their eyes. "Um, um, um" seems to mean the same thing too but for a visual, it was either baby birds begging to be fed or Homer Simpson wanting donuts, more more more.

As an aside, when I returned back to Canada and we talked on the phone, our first cell video chat was weird. They just looked at the phone and stared, probably not comprehending who the rested, made up lady was, until I said "Um". Both kicked into life and responded with Um and we went back and forth for awhile. It was hysterical because I was speaking their language and probably agreeing to join in their overthrowing the establishment.

I did learn that if you are feeding a baby an apple, well, you're stoopid and you just shouldn't. These monkeys will thoroughly chew it to mince and just when you are patting yourself on the back for feeding healthy babies, they use their tongues and push it all out EVERYWHERE!. They are merely chipmunks storing food until they can trash your place, the rental car, the stroller, the living room. Military forces should hire the services of these two ninja chewing warriors to create chaos from the calm. They did like the dried fruit sheets from the market a lot, as did grandma.

Tried to read them my personalized grandma reading audio book but they would not sit still. One of the only things that kept them progressively captivated were two dollar store squeeze dinosaurs where when you squeeze them, little bubbles would pop out. Initially it was soooo hard on my hand to do this but by the end, I had muscles. So I would squish it, all the bubbles would come up, they would take turns pushing them back in, then I would turn over the mini dino and moves it's mouth like it was laughing it's head off. Funny for the kids but choose carefullly how you want to spend all of your days. This was not one way lol.

Playing together nicely? When did that happen?

Resting at the playground

So just some random kids shots before I sign off on another weird travel but this time with sick kids who made grandma and mom real sick. At least daughter is now cured of the travel bug until the kids get older or we both develop amnesia, as we always do, next winter. The few times babies sat or lay peacefully.