Debriefing

I feel like I’ve been going on fast-forward for the past couple of weeks and can’t quite find the time to get caught up on everything that needs to be done, but I’m going to make myself sit down and recap our trip north.  I’m exhausted from a busy (though short) week at work, so I’m going to do things in bullet-point style sine I don’t have the energy to compose everything in coherent paragraph form. I warn that I’ll probably skip around a bit.

*The flights up there went fairly well. Just because of how things during the day fell, Baby B didn’t get a nap all day long, so she was fussy for part of the flights, which was a bit stressful for us. I could see people exchanging those knowing looks with each other that say, “Just my luck I get stuck near a crying baby on the airplane,” but what can you do?

*They made us take off Baby B’s shoes when we went through security on the way up there. Her tiny, itty bitty shoes. I actually said, “Are you serious?” The problem is that her shoes are hard to get on and off–but we need them to be like that because otherwise she’ll just kick or pull them right off. What sort of explosive devices could we hide in such small shoes? There’s a better chance of hiding something in her diaper–but we certainly weren’t asked to take that off. I didn’t even bother putting shoes on her when we came home and just kept her in socks.

*As seen in the picture in yesterday’s post, Baby B got to meet one of her two first cousins for the first time. I’ll call the four-year-old cousin GiggleButt. Baby B and GiggleButt LOVED each other. Baby B kept leaning in to give GiggleButt hugs. GiggleButt wanted to hug Baby B all the time. On the second night, GiggleButt didn’t want to take her bath, so I asked if she wanted to take a bath with Baby B, and she said, “Okay!” They were too sweet playing together in the tub!

*We seemed to have a little bit of a breaththrough in eating finger foods while we were away. Baby B very willingly gobbled up dry toast and pancakes without even so much as a hint of a gag like she’s done with other adult foods.

*Baby B began blowing kisses to us for the first time while in Connecticut.

*The flights on the way back were much better despite being delayed by winter weather. Baby B slept on the first (and longer) flight, then she entertained herself on the second flight. It was hilarious…she’d bonk herself on the head with her open hand, then giggle a deep belly laugh. Then she’d do it again and make herself laugh. About every fourth or fifth time she did it, I’d do the same thing she was doing, and that sent her over the edge with giggles! One woman in front of us was particularly amused by the whole thing. It was hilarious!

*We were fortunate and did not have to change any diapers on the planes, and the diarrhea wasn’t an issue on the trip. Her ears also never seemed to bother her at all despite flying with ear infections.

*Baby B was able to keep to her normal schedule fairly well and still slept perfectly at night. She got mildly fussy a couple of times when she was in need of a nap, but she never had any meltdowns while we were away.

*She found the box to a KitchenAid hand mixer in the house and pushed that all around the house, making her motorboat sound as she adventured.

*We have a one-story house, so Baby B has never attempted to climb stairs before. Her first time on them and she pretty much zoomed right to the top without a second thought. We tried to have her do it a few times after that but she never made it past the first step, probably thinking too hard about it, but it was fun to see her do it that first time.

I’m sure I’ll think of other tidbits in the coming weeks, but I think that covers things for now. Other than taking down the Christmas decorations this weekend, I’m doing NOTHING at all!