2013-06-20T01:05:53-04:00 Alice Kuipers http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=alice-kuipers Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Alice Kuipers Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1587730 2012-06-12T08:15:22-04:00 2012-08-12T05:12:06-04:00

Alice Kuipers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-kuipers/
Before You Leave:

1- Take two or three minutes to check online where the nearest clinic to your hotel is. Before the experience of traveling in a hot ambulance to who-knows-where, my son struggling to breathe, I would have thought this was an overly paranoid thing to do. Now, I wish we'd taken the time to find out where we were going and to find out where was the best place to locate a pediatrician. Turns out for us the closest proper hospital was two hours away and we'd have started the journey a lot sooner if we'd known.

2- Get medical insurance. Really, don't forget this step. You'll be so grateful for the help they can provide at the end of the phone line, and for the reimbursement later on.

3- Make sure all your child's current medications are up to date and in the suitcase. Our Ventolin inhaler ran out and the spare was at my son's school, where we keep it for emergencies. It was impossible to find a replacement at the first clinic we went to in Cuba -- they simply didn't have one -- and we'll never make the same mistake again.

When You're There:

1- Make sure you understand what's happening. Ask doctors and nurses to repeat themselves or find a translator if you can't work out the language barrier. Also, make sure you are clearly understood. Croup can be relatively minor, but in our case, it wasn't. We should have made it clearer earlier just how bad things were. We assumed the doctor understood how sick our son was, the doctor assumed they had all the information at hand. Assumptions can be dangerous.

2- If you have to go to the hospital and you're in a country where you can't take these things for granted, take bottled water and food. We even had to take toilet paper.

3- Think about leaving your child's toys with the kids who remain at the hospital if you're visiting somewhere where toys are not easy to come by. When my son recovered, the other children at the hospital in Santa Clara got to enjoy his books and crayons -- easy to replace in Canada.

4- Contact your insurer. They need to know what's happening.

5- If you are on a holiday with a tour rep, contact them too. They will be able to help.

6- The Canadian Consulate might be able to help if you need it -- we certainly appreciated their assistance.

7- Get the doctor to write a letter for the airline letting them know your child is able to travel. Most airlines won't let you on if your child is presenting symptoms.

8- Get receipts for everything. You'll need them.

When You Get Back:

1- If it was serious, follow up with a doctor at home. Do what you can to avoid it happening again.

2- Contact your insurer. They'll want receipts and details of everything that happened.

3- Take a long hot bath. So much for holidays! The most relaxed I've been all week is right back in my house!

In the end, my son loved the beach, loved the ocean, loved the hospital, even. If I'd been a little more prepared, the experience of him being so sick would have been much less harrowing. I hope these tips help you to have a safe, happy, fun vacation!]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1568918 2012-06-04T16:10:15-04:00 2012-08-04T05:12:12-04:00

Alice Kuipers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-kuipers/
I don't mean in terms of space (although I have to move my beloved office if I want the baby not to sleep in our room anymore), I mean I was worried how to fit another child into our lives. Navigating the complicated balance for any parent who is trying to work while trying to do the best for her children demanded a mental compass I didn't have. One child felt manageable, two felt impossible.

My mum was puzzled when I tried to talk to her about my worries. "Um, you just get on with it," she advised. "Stop worrying." (Although isn't worrying a default occupation for parents?)

Now my daughter is nearly a year old, my son is nearly three, and I'm having a rare moment of insight. It seems to me that getting on with it is exactly the way to manage children and writing books (or whatever your job may be). I'm sure it's terribly British to imagine that bucking up and soldiering on is the way to parent, but maybe there's something to be said for not worrying about how to do it all.

I have to let things slide, I have to miss deadlines when one of my children is sick, I have to let them battle it out when I have something crazy important to attend to, I have to relax into the ups and downs of not being able to control my days (or nights, come to think of it).

It was probably my fault for ever thinking that I had any control in the first place, but I've definitely learned with two children that my notions of control were bonkers (if I'm going to be British about it, I might as well go the whole hog).

So, I get on with it. I do get to write, sometimes. And when I do, I write as hard as I can, stuffing words onto the page and trying to get coherence out of the foggy 3 a.m. ideas that spring to mind. It means a lot more editing and a lot less productivity, but looking at the two of them giggling or fighting over a sock (what is the attraction with socks?), I'm sure that not worrying if I'm up to par as a parent or as a writer is probably the only way for me to be able to keep doing both.]]>