Letter No.27 He knows how to handle pressure

 

Nursery Room at Taipei Songshan Airport
台北松山空港のベビールーム

When you are a newborn, you experience so many first times.

Today was Bubu's first international flight from Tokyo to Taipei. 

At the age of 4 months old, he officially became a "flight passenger" carrying his own passport. 

The moment that made daddy most nervous came when I presented Bubu's passport to the immigration control officer. 

They usually check your face to match the passport photo for identity verification, and Bubu was of course no exception. 

In fact, Bubu's photo was taken when he was one month old and his face now looks completely different. Facial fat and hairstyle do transform a person's face! 

Fortunately, an officer who inspected us didn't scrutinize Bubu's face (or he’s just used to checking infant's face) and Bubu passed the immigration control with flying colors. 

The next hurdle was how to overcome changes in air pressure during the flight.  

We learned that babies' undeveloped ears sometimes cannot properly handle the pressure, which may cause pain or discomfort for them. 

Worried before the flight took off, I fought hard with Bubu over making him suck the pacifier in an attempt to mitigate the impact from the change in pressure. 

Bubu resisted and fought back with strong force, using his arms to brush my hands away from his face.  

I finally caved in despite some lingering concerns, only to find, when the flight just began ascending, that he came up with his own way to soothe himself: He began sucking his thumb loudly . 

When the airplane descended and almost touched the ground, he even gave us a big yawn, swallowing a large sum of air, to equalize the pressure inside and outside of his ears. This baby knows how to handle the pressure well! 

After we disembarked from the airplane, 

my wife's mom, dad, brother, auntie, who have been eagerly waiting for the baby’s arrival, gave Bubu a hero's welcome at the airport. 

I'm sure he's going to have a blast during his stay in Taiwan! 

To be continued...