Our first ever PLANNED trip to Italy.

Getting my head straight was the first thing I had to do to plan out this trip. My husband told me he's taking me to Italy and I was like woohooo but when planning the itinerary for such a place where they say 'Rome wasn't built in one day' wasn't really that simple. We knew we wanted to see most of it but the question was most of what?? We started by first finalizing our dates and the airports. We were traveling from Ryanair to Rome and our return was from Bergamo (Milan).
It would be handy to keep the map of Italy open on another webpage to make sure about location and time distance amongst them. After booking the flight we realized that we wanted to see the south of Italy as well so we should have booked Pompei but since the booking was done and Ryanair isn't that easy in changing tickets we thought we would drive to Pompei for three hours as soon as we land in Rome. And that's exactly what we did. Will talk about that later but before departing Dublin there was lots to do.
Having a four year old and a nine month baby, we had to make sure that they were not to exerted with the trip but I must say a big thumbs up to them for what was yet to come.
We planned 7 nights 6 different cities 6 different hotels…lots of hotel booking was needed.
My job was to find good hotels and take my husband's credit card and book them. Simple!
It sounds like a fun job but…. it's not. You often hear people say 'book early to get a good deal' hence my search started three weeks prior to our depart. Believe me when I say "I went crazy". With the internet being overcrowded with unlimited websites it was quite a challenging task. However before finalizing the hotel I always gave the hotel a quick ring for any clarifications I had regarding the room, baby crib, parking…etc. Do bare in mind that most of my booking was not done on the hotels direct website, I mostly used: trip advisor, venere, agoda and trivago.

A few points when booking a hotel:

1- Breakfast must be included! It's always good to leave the hotel with a good heavy breakfast specially with kids. And Im not talking about B&B here, we had continental breakfast served daily with proper buffet.
2- Car park of the hotel. If you are renting a car it's good to know your car is parked in safe area. Plus some hotels would charge €5/€10 per night to use the parking whereas some didn't.
3- There's city tax in Italy so apart from the room charges there's extra charge per person per night ranging from €2.50-€10. Children are free :)
4-Location of the hotel. You don't want to waste too much time driving or getting to the attraction specially if there's so much you have to do in such a short while.
5-And of course the cost of the room on which you really don't  have much control unless there's an offer going on or you book early. Do lots of research for good deals since there are plenty of sites offering different rates and when you call the hotel personally you can sometimes get a different price as well.

I must say the staff in each hotel were very friendly and they all had small nutella packs available for breakfast as well. We went for  4* hotels as they seemed to meet our requirements.

 http://www.bighospitality.co.uk

Watch this space for more details about our trip in the coming post : 7 nights & 6 cities

 

 

Sleepless nights ain't joyful mommies

I don't understand why; specially first time moms; say "joyful sleepless nights" when there little baby is born. Now if you seperate the two words 'joyful' and 'sleepless' they will probably make more sense. Yes being a first time or second time or everytime mom is definately joyful.. No matter what number child it is! Holding  the priceless jewel in your hands is joyful, no happiness can fullfil that place but please, sleepless nights it ain't that. And it's just the beginning that has no end.. People say actually not people your own mother would tell you " once he's 6 months and starts weaning you will sleep better" like hello that is so not true! My daughter is four and these two reasons will prove this (atleast for me) firstly i've had another child whose three  months and needs his feed just as im about to go to bed or its just night time toilet training for my daughter.. The waking up to take her to school.. Or morning vaccinne.. A mother cannot sleep in! Im not saying all this is bad, it's  just that 'sleepless nights are not joyful'

(Picture from online source)

Its a tech world!

In todays economy technology has taken such a valuable place in our lives or lets say taken over our lives that we are unable to differentiate what really is important and what is not. The quality time that was spent with family, friends or even at work is now more controlled by our iphones, ipads, notebooks whatever you may call it. 

Honestly speaking it made me forget how to actually write..

Accept it or not your in it too not because you want to but theres not really much of an option. We are all aware of the positive sides; it being the most accessible, informationaly loaded, time pass product; and the negativity;  unhealthy, stressful and time consuming; we still cannot seperate ourselves from it. With apps like viber, skype, whatsapp on the phone who needs; once upon a time; landline numbers.. When was the last time you actually used your house phone. Yes there is a minority out there who are not into this so please keep yourself out of it cause it is addictive and it will too take over you.

Sitting on the bed trying to put my son to sleep whilst I type this out on my iphone makes me think what will the world of techs be when he is putting his kids to sleep.. 

The second time

Just when your about to get your 'me time' as your first one gets more independent; the second one decides to come. The joyful nappy changing and enjoyable sleepless nights will start all over again when the little bundle of joy arrives. Well it happens when it happens I guess. But is the second time around the same as the first time. The primary difference I've felt is lack of patience and excess of emotions,anything makes me cry and nothing makes me happy! Honestly it's funny when you come to think about it but that's the truth of hormonal imbalance. Secondly I feel is that you are counting days; like literally. Since you know what's about to happen to your body, you just want the time to go as quick as it can but like the first time it WILL take nine months. The only similarity between the first and second is the shopping excitement and it only gets better when you know whether it's a boy or girl and if you don't know then better play it safe with whites, yellows and greens. 

There's always a next time mommy!

Wow! what all does a mother must do leaving her with no choice because it's not really an option. She needs to be an all rounder and make sure that things are going perfectly right. Now.. perfectly right is not really possible with kids around. You try to make them nutritious food but they refuse to even touch it, you teach them manners but they still misbehave in front of guests.. Well the list just goes on. And at the end, leaves me, as a mother frustrated and stressed and makes me wonder where is it that I'm going wrong. Let me first correct myself here, first of all I'm not doing anything wrong because as a mother you only want to what's best for the child so how can that be wrong?? I just need to sit back and take things slowly and one at the time, if they don't work out it's ok because maybe it's not the right time but with time your child will eat that food you made, will definately start understanding what's right and wrong... The point is that sometimes the time is just wrong to do all that but don't give up: there's always a next time!

    Picture is from a website

Montessori Teacher

Wow it's been a while since I last blogged and I would like to blame my new job for that.
I started working as the montessori teacher and am honestly loving it!
It is definitely tiring and by tiring I mean mentally (not physically). By the end of the day your brain is numb and stops functioning.  What tires me are not the questions in fact they are the most creative and interesting questions that actually make you think of an answer that is true and can be told in a context that they understand. What tires my mind is them constantly calling out your name every second of the three hours that I am there for (As I'm only working part-time). As much as I love my job and enjoy working with the young, new generation explorers; I've started to hate my name.
For any one who is studying to become a montessori teacher DO NOT change your mind; you will with time get use to the goods and the bads and will become the super heroes in the eyes of the little ones. (They always think you know everything!)
It's been an interesting journey; in less than a year it has taught me lots of patience and most importantly  the ability to understand kids and that sometimes they are too allowed to get their way around as long as it's safe to do so.

This picture was taken from the www.merchantcircle.com

'The Right Thing'

Being a mum within itself is a pretty time consuming responsibility and tough at the same time as you have to make sure your kid is doing 'THE RIGHT THING' - Now what exactly is that

Every household or let's say culture has a few to do's and a few not to do's and based on that you judge what's right for your child and what's not but doesn't this limit the creativity of your child. If you stop them from doing what's wrong how will they know what exactly is the wrong thing before they even do it. When Sireen was born and she had just started walking I had removed all the dangerous things that would hurt but I didn't put safety guards for the stairs etc because I always wanted her to explore her way around. Obviously I did have to be careful but that didn't stop her from doing her new thing 'exploring'. I'm not saying I am the perfect mother but there's no perfect child either.

I feel there's no such thing as 'WRONG' for the child as they are simply innocent checking their new little world out but maybe it's just not the right time for them. 

Enjoy their childhood cause it hardly lasts.