We just returned yesterday from a week in Texas introducing Cameron to all his family -- both by blood and of the heart. It was a wonderful and tiring trip. Poor punkin' spent the majority of the week absolutely beside himself with exhaustion. Life is hard when you're 10 weeks old.
Mini's usual schedule is to wake up, eat, have a little play time, and then go back to bed. This routine rarely lasts more then an hour. At the end of an hour he is yawning and staring...clear signs that he is ready to be swaddled up and rocked back to dreamland. Well, that's not exactly how it works when you're flying 4 hours on a plane, or spending time with grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles, "aunts and uncles", cousins, friends, etc., etc. Both Saturday and Sunday he was so tired from being up meeting people, he could hardly get himself back to sleep. Talk about break Mommy's heart.
The other thing that broke Mommy's heart was that for a week before we got there he was basically sleeping through the night...eating at 11pm-ish and not waking up until 6am or 7am-ish. Talk about HEAVEN for the sleep deprived Mommy. Sadly, it didn't last, and now we're back to waking up halfway through the night to eat. Sigh. I can't decide if I'm hopeful because I know he CAN do it, or frustrated because I know he CAN do it, and won't. Oh well, 1 step forward, 2 steps back.
This trip marked Cameron's first airplane trip, and I finally knew what it felt like to be "those people". You know the ones...with the crying child on the airplane. To be fair, he did really well. On the flight to Dallas (which was just him and me), he got really upset just before we took off. He wasn't the only one, as we were stuck on the plane for over an hour after they shut down the airport because 4 F16's were flying over Shea Stadium to mark Opening Day for the Mets. Can I just say it is not easy to try to nurse a crying, squirming baby in a ultra-narrow airplane seat, sitting next to a perfect stranger (older gentleman who was pretending we weren't there), surrounded by all our stuff (diaper bag, jacket, scarf, baby carrier, nursing cover, burp cloths, et al.). This happened twice during the flight.
On the way home, Kevin was with us, and he only got upset once, again right before we took off. I had already fed him, but he wouldn't stop crying. You could practically hear the people around us rolling their eyes, sighing, and shifting around in their seats, imagining that my son was going to cry the entire 3.5 hour trip. We were doing everything we could to soothe him. The lady behind us started offering advice. I wanted to turn around and say, "here, since you know what to do, you take him."
He finally settled down, and then slept the whole way home. But those few uncomfortable minutes felt like hours as we're trying to stop the crying, and imagining the glares of the entire plane on our sweet, yet overtired baby boy.
Ever been there?
All around, a good trip...but it is absolutely GLORIOUS to be home.
