Little Footsteps in the Big World

It's pretty often when I see memes on my facebook timeline with similar phrases to "vacations with kids are basically business trip". And in my personal opinion, it's also the other way around: when you have kids, business trips are basically vacations. Well don't get me wrong, I enjoy traveling and vacationing with kids. As you might have noticed from my previous posts, we travel and vacation a lot with kids. However though, like most moms with babies, once in a while I wish I could just have a night away from the kids to just sleep for eight (or even six!) hours straight. And business trips, for me, are the answer to this. Of course I could easily have a night out with the girls, or with my husband, and leave the kids for a night to the grandma (or a sitter). And I do that, now and then. However, my needs sometimes extend beyond the need to sleep alone. I also miss being just by myself sometimes. Not being someone's mother, or someone's wife. I used to...

On my previous post about our story of cruising with little kids , I promised to write a separate post for tips and tricks for cruising on budget. I mentioned how we took the cheapest cabin available in the ship. The price also covers all meals and access to most facilities like pools, gym, theater, library, etc. Of course, you'd have to pay extra for spa and its services like massage. The good news is, kids don't pay until their 18th birthday, and they get their own beds in the parents' cabin. So if you're not crazy about private balcony or windows with sea-view, take the cheapest inside cabin for your family and spend most of your time on the outdoor deck. You'd literally just sleep and shower in the cabin. Apart from the main price of the cruise, these are our tips to keep your experience low budget: Research well to avoid taking their official shuttle Most cruise ports are located a little far from the city center or the old historic port of the town. B...

Two years ago we planned to go on a cruise. After a couple of years of saving and planning, we booked to sail in late summer of 2016. But then I got pregnant with our youngest and we had to delay sailing until I give birth. We re-booked for late summer 2017 and we finally sailed last week with Costa Pacifica , with two little kids instead of one. The ship departs from Savona, Italy, 800km from Zagreb, where we live. With the toddler and the baby, we knew it would probably be the drive from hell, so we decided to drive during the night, when both of them are asleep. We left home at 3am on Wednesday, and got to the port of Savona only at 1pm with five breaks from driving. Someone was hungry, someone needed the restroom, someone was crying, and all that. The deck where we spend most of our time At the port we were welcomed with valet parking, handed them the car key and our suitcases. We walked toward the terminal and were given priority boarding (yay!) and walked directly into th...

Growing up, my husband's and my family were not camping families. We never stayed in a camp for a summer holiday. We had always stayed in a hotel, a hostel, or a private rented apartment. But both of us had always, always wanted to try camping for summer vacation. Now with two kids, for some (stupid) reason, we had been always delaying this plan. This summer finally we decided to at least try to be at the camp. To reduce the shock for the kids (and for ourselves), we took a mobile home. We thought, once we're used to the life in a camp, we'd do tent next summer. Although technically we did sleep in a tent already during one festival we attended recently . Mobile homes are relatively expensive, so we chose a short four-day beach break. We'd always loved the Istrian peninsula, so I booked us one mobile-home in Medulin Camp , at the most southern part of the peninsula. The mobile homes within the camp When we got our little house on Saturday, the toddler was ecstat...

The whole idea of going to the festival was, of course, my husband's. He accidentally found out that one of his favorite bands during his adolescence, Ugly Kid Joe, was part of the three-day long " Beer and Flowers Festival " organized annually in Laško, a small town in Slovenia. Taking a toddler and a baby to a rock concert, although not mainstream, sounded acceptable to me. But taking them to a three-day festival and sleeping in the tent? I wasn't sure. Up to that point, they never spent a whole night sleeping in a tent outdoor. But my husband assured me that it would be cool. We just need to try to sleep in the camp for one night, and our main goal was just Ugly Kid Joe. I accepted his proposal and I got us a one-day entrance ticket for the day when his band is performing, and camping ticket valid for all three days. The toddler (in pink t-shirt) looking for a spot to build our tents The day we came to Laško, Thursday, was a warm day. We exchanged our ticke...

"Did you write anything on your blog about China?" my husband asked me yesterday. "I didn't plan to, why?" I asked him back. "Well, because it's very interesting, I think it makes a good story". Then a friend texted me, one day after my arrival back to Zagreb (read: I was heavily jet-lagged and exhausted) to, literally, ask me to let my husband come to his place to drink, alone, and leave the kids with me, because, and I quote, I already enjoyed myself for five days. At this point I decided to write how my first child-free trip truly went. To have fun? Sure I'd like to. To enjoy myself for five days? Who wouldn't want that? Honestly, what I wanted to do in China was just sleep. To finally sleep. You read the reason why I was leaving for China for a week . So I left a toddler and a baby with my husband at home. Long story short, I was on the plane heading to Vienna from Zagreb. It was a 45-minute flight so it was fine. I had a short la...

In this world we're living today, we all get judged for everything. Especially if you're a mom. Unless you're a mom who lives in a cave deep in the jungle with no one else around. We're judged for formula feeding. For breastfeeding. For leaving the kids for work. For staying at home. For putting a baby in a crib. For sharing the bed with the baby. Everything we do is wrong. Smirks in the park, hate comments in social media. Imagine a mom who has to leave a five-month-old to go somewhere very faraway, for business reason, for a week. And I happen to be that mom.  If you've been reading my blog, you know that I -we- always, always take the children when traveling. We take them wherever we're going, and they enjoy the trips as much as we do. But for business trips I can't really do that, can I? Here where we live, we're lucky because parents get 12 paid months of maternity leave (14 months if dads use his part). With my firstborn my first business t...

The day of THE trip had come and the girls and I were heading home to Croatia from Indonesia. 11.000 km without my husband, just the kids (a three-year-old and a four-month-old) and I. On mother's day. Chances are, I'd never go alone with a toddler and a baby this far without my husband ever again, unless we get another child. We had to fly three times, from Malang (my hometown in Java island) to Jakarta (a 1-hour flight), then from Jakarta to Doha (an 8-hour flight) and finally from Doha to Zagreb (a 6-hour flight). Our first big flight from Jakarta to Doha was around midnight, so my mom decided to fly with us to Jakarta to give me a hand. I decided to fly to Jakarta early and book us a room in the airport hotel so the kids will be rested for the big flight. Our local flight to Jakarta was on Saturday at 1pm (GMT+7) when the kids and I said goodbye to my dad. Goodbyes are always hard, but it was probably the hardest for my toddler to say goodbye to him. She's attach...