15 April, 2022
Did an epic drive up to Brisbane in one go yesterday, leaving Sydney at
9am and arriving in Sunnybank Brisbane at midnight! Charlie had been good,
sleeping when the car was moving. We still had to stop the car quite a few
times to help him stretch, make sure he was not overheated, and feed him. In
addition to the frequent stopping, there were some congestions on the road
which delayed us by 1.5hours. I had to drive as well, because it wasn’t safe
for my husband to do all the driving himself over such a long distance. It
wasn’t a good feeling to be pumping my breasts in the car, but feeding
expressed milk was the most efficient way to feed him when we were driving, as
we didn’t have to stop the car when we did that. We brought a cooler bag, ice
pack, milk warmer, cooled boiled water, and steam steriliser, which are all
very important equipment for feeding! The cooler bag and ice pack acts as a
“minifridge” so that excessive expressed milk and the pump containers don’t
spoil during the car trip. We even brought the baby mobile, so there will be
some familiar soothing music for him in the new environment. By the time we got
to Port Macquarie, I felt I was going nuts already! One of my university
classmates also came to Brisbane with his family, but they flew up instead of
driving up, and I began feeling very envious of them. They flew by Qantas,
which has its own domestic terminal, which they said was not congested with
people like the other domestic terminal. Don’t think I will ever agree to my
husband about doing a drive like this again in the future. There was a cot
prepared for Charlie in the motel, but Charlie got very scared in the strange
cot, so we had to place Charlie in between us on the bed. Not the most ideal
situation, but nothing much we could do.
16 April, 2022
Thought my milk production would decrease big time due to all the stress of travelling like we did yesterday. Surprisingly, it didn’t! Maybe it’s the magic of the Taiwanese food in Sunnybank. Met up with the family that flew up from Sydney to Brisbane yesterday. Their 6 month old is only approximately 20 days older than Charlie and is smiley and friendly to everyone. Charlie is more reserved. Charlie is calm with strangers but only tend to smile to people he knows well. Sunnybank is actually a pretty good place to visit when you cannot go back to Taiwan for Taiwanese food. We haven’t been back to Taiwan since January 2020. Began meeting up with relatives and friends today.
17 April, 2022
Had a family portrait session with our wedding photographer Alex. Although it was quite tiring, it was something worthwhile doing, especially with a 6 month old baby, as this is a time when babies reach some important milestones. Furthermore, it was a rare opportunity where we could have professional photos with Chris’ relatives. And most importantly, photos taken at home cannot compare with photos taken by a highly skilled professional!
18 April, 2022
This is the day when we realised “it’s a small world in Brisbane after
all”. We were taking it easy and didn’t arrange to meet anyone in the day time,
but bumped into Chris’ cousin whom we had only just met for lunch the day
before, and an aunty who had played an important role in Chris’ life whom we
only just met for dinner the day before. Don’t know if it’s simply easy to bump
into people in Sunnybank and Calamvale, or it’s God’s providence.
19 April, 2022
Did another 15 hour drive today. Left Brisbane at 7am and arrived in Sydney at 10pm. The traffic was really bad on the way towards Gold Coast. We stopped in Tweed Heads, as I’ve never been there before. It is actually quite a nice place to take a vacation. Then, we were intending to stop at the service station in Ballina but the misleading signage led us to exit the highway before reaching the service station and we couldn’t get back onto the highway without going to the tow centre! At Ballina, we took a photo of the big prawn. Charlie was tired. Then, the next stop was Coffs Harbour, and we stopped by the big banana. Charlie could barely open his eyes. By the time we got to Taree, it was dark already, and we didn’t bother taking a photo of the big oyster as it is too ugly anyways. The weather was pretty good until the last 30 minutes of our drive. When we got home and placed Charlie in the cot, he began grinning happily. When we placed the baby mobile back onto the cot, Charlie pressed the start music button using his hand for the first time! He used to press the button with his feet before! That’s quite a leap in his fine motor skills at 6 months and 9 days!
