On the road again

Courtney and I flew up to Connecticut yesterday to spend a long weekend with my family. I’d hoped to come up in October and visit in the fall, when the weather was warmer and the leaves were changing, but that didn’t happen. Next thing you know, it’s December and it’s cold and all the leaves are long gone. Regardless, we made it and that’s what matters.

Our day yesterday started really early in the morning, I actually had to wake Courtney up so we could get out of the house on time. Add to the early wake up, missing her morning nap because we were going to be on the plane, and I had little hope that the day was going to go well. I booked Courtney and I in first class (using miles) because there’s “more room” than in coach. Since she flies in my lap, I can use as much space as I can get. We got really lucky, the man next to us has a 9 month old so he had no problem with Courtney wiggling around and touching him and launching her sippy cup into his laptop. Courtney actually didn’t do too bad, she was tired, no doubt about it but wouldn’t sleep. She was a little whiny and crazy wiggly but she was pretty quiet and didn’t piss anyone off (I don’t think). She spent quite a bit of time standing at my feet and touching everything around us but it seemed easier than pissing her off and having her scream at me.

It’s about a 20 minute drive from the airport to my folks house and, of course, with 3 minutes left to go (literally), she fell asleep in the car. And that was the extent of her napping for the entire day. Three minutes. This is from someone who usually naps anywhere from 2 – 4 hours a day, usually closer to 4 hours than 2. She was getting pretty punchy but held it together for most of the day. I tried to get her to nap, twice, but no luck. You can bet that when she went down for the night, it didn’t take but a minute or two for her to fall sound asleep.

It’s great that we get to come up for a visit and spend some time with most of my family. One of my brothers spent all day with us yesterday and my grandmother came over for dinner last night. We don’t get to see everyone as often as I’d like so the changes in Courtney are pretty drastic when they get to see her. I haven’t seen my grandmother since May and I think she was crawling at that point but probably not pulling herself up and certainly not walking. Now Courtney is walking all over the place and she’s in to everything. I can remember our visit around this time last year, Courtney was only 5 weeks old or so. She was an itty bitty baby in that huge infant car seat, now she’s basically a toddler. Crazy.

It should be a nice weekend and I’m glad that we’re here. Being out of our element is always a little stressful but hopefully all will go well. (For example, Courtney has been in the pack n play for 20 minutes or so and is just screaming her head off. Just nap already, kid.) It’s probably a better week to be in CT than it is in Atlanta, it’s supposed to snow in Atlanta. Niiice.