...AND IT FEELS SO GOOD!
A couple of weeks ago our little family went separate ways: the girls headed west and the man went south. Justin left first. He spent 4 days in Washington DC putting on a conference his company has been working on for months. While he was away, I continuously found Miss You notes around the house.
(Yes, we are those kind of people.)
Bryn and I left for California before Justin got back from Washington. I was nervous about/totally dreading the (5 hour flight+1 hour layover+2 hour flight+1.5 hour drive) day of traveling it was going to take to get us to CA. Overall it went pretty well, minus the tiff I got into with one of our flight attendants regarding traveling with a toddler. In spite of her face-to-face lecture, her lecture to me made public over the airplane PA system, and countless dirty looks shot from her eyes to mine, we exited the aircraft without tears, without juice covered clothing, and with the other passengers still smiling and commenting on Bryn's cuteness. I deem that a success. And I attribute much of that success to my magical bag of airplane entertainment. I was prepared with books, stickers, spinning tops, mardi gras necklaces, crayons, DVDs (of which Bryn will watch 20 minutes before she's ready to be doing something else...those blessed 20 minutes of down time allowed me to recoup and be r-r-r-roaring to go again when it was over, thank you Baby Einstein!), a roll of scotch tape, post it notes, lots of snacks, and a box of kleenex (what toddler doesn't love pulling kleenex out of the box one-by-one?). We also sang lots of songs. I'm sure the passengers around us were impressed with my lovely singing voice, but they must've all been too shy to throw out a compliment. :)
So, we made it to California. Then it only took about 6 of our 8 days there for Bryn to get over her majorly intense stranger anxiety, as demonstrated by, but not limited to: not allowing anyone to hold her; bursting into tears after a friendly look from Kim and a "Good morning, Bryn" from Mark; avoiding eye contact with my mom at all costs; and becoming hysterical if ever I was out of her sight. There were two exceptions to the stranger anxiety: 7 year old Aunt Kari, and the beloved Ginger. Kari's attention provided me with a couple of solo bathroom trips and sweet Ginger was laid on, hugged, had her tail pulled, had her jowls pulled, eyes poked, ears yanked, etc. and endured it all with the utmost passivity. Maybe it was because of all the food Bryn shared with her?
Smiles started to make more frequent appearances around day 6. Here's one while playing in a little pool at Grandma's house:
Unfortunately that's the only one I have documented because it's pretty much the only picture I took while we were there. Lame, I know. It really was great to see cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents before venturing to Africa. I love you all! And deep down Bryn loves you too, I think.During our layover on the way home:
Bryn got her first scraped knee in CA...didn't even shed a tear.
Happy to be unpacked in our home sweet home
