Our Vacation and the Haunted Hoochie

We got back from our “vacation” yesterday afternoon and are all trying to get back to our normal routines. It’s hard for all of us. I’m back at work and that somewhat has me on a normal schedule, but work is anything but normal right now. There’s just so much going on…a last minute trip to DC next week, right after I took a week off…not great timing. Roger has a lot of work to catch up on too, and don’t even get me started on Kaelyn! I now know why the word is called “spoiled”. Our relatives ruined our child…but more on that later.


We spent last week in Florida and Ohio visiting both sides of the family. There were so many people who hadn’t met Kaelyn yet, and we really didn’t want to wait too much longer to have her meet them. I started out both trips (Florida and then Ohio), thinking it would be nice to live near family again. There are so many advantages to it…the time for them to bond with Kae, spending holidays together without traveling, being close enough to visit without having to take time off work, etc. But, by the time we got back on a plane Saturday morning, Roger and I were cemented in our opinion that Sacramento is right where we want to be. With all the advantages of being near family, the distance is also…well, healthy. First, it’s impossible for us to live near all our family since they are split between Florida/Alabama, Ohio, and Greece. To pick one set to be near is torture and no matter what we decide, we would still have to travel somewhere to see someone. It’s much nicer to say, “We live here. Near no one” than to choose and have to deal with the consequences of what the other families would think and feel.

Secondly, our families spoiled Kae rotten! Sure, if they saw her more often, they probably wouldn’t be so bad, but still…

Every time Kae made a sound, someone was there to pick her up, give her a cookie or a cracker, or do whatever they could to make her smile again. And while I think the love and consolation of a crying baby is good, the truth is Kaelyn is a faker. She’s one year old. She’s testing us. She recently learned the meaning of “no” and while she listens to Roger and me when we say it, she will whine about it…to get us to give in. We don’t. But my mom totally does. She’s also teething (managed to cut two more teeth while we were away) and sometimes that pain will make her cranky. Roger and I try to distract her with teething rings or carrots to make her feel better. We give her medicine only if she absolutely needs it…and so far has only been that bad once. Sometimes she cries out while she’s sleeping. Only once, maybe twice, and she does this in her sleep. We have learned after that initial cry to wait. Most of the time, she doesn’t make another sound and is fast asleep when we check on her. I think this is from the pain of teething, or maybe she’s dreaming, but the fact remains, she cries and we wait to see if it’s “real” before doing anything. Our families were the complete opposite. If she so much as breathed heavily, someone was in there picking her up (waking her up) and giving her something to eat, drink or play with. Not good.

Kae may complain a little bit when I first put her down for a nap or at bedtime, but normally, after she voices her initial frustration, she lies there quietly and is asleep by the time the second song on the music CD I play for her is over. After we got back yesterday, she threw a mini tantrum when I put her down for the night. For the last week, that bought her more time to play. Now, I feel like I have to re-train her.

For all the complaining I’m doing, I do love our families and love how much they love and adore Kae. I think it’s great for her to have people in her life that will spoil her and I want her to be excited about these trips in the future. And while I’ll spend the next few days/week getting her back on our routine, I’m truly happy that she got time with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. She loved the attention and they loved her. This is why I think it would be good to be near them again…and the result of her “spoiling” is why I’m happy that we are a little further away most of time.

Overall, the trip was really good. We left early on Saturday morning, spend a four hour layover in Dallas, which wasn’t nearly as bad as it sounds, and was in Florida in time for dinner. Kaelyn got to meet my Grandmother for the first time, we visited my Dad’s farm and ate A LOT of food! We left for Ohio Wednesday afternoon, got there extremely late and welcomed sleep when it finally came to us. We had a Thanksgiving dinner on Friday, followed by the Haunted Hoochie (the world’s best haunts). We had another birthday party for Kaelyn on Saturday, and visited many many friends and family of Roger. It was a great time. We had little sleep in Ohio and when we got home all we wanted was to relax. We were in bed by 8pm!

In one week, we had a total of 6 flights. Kaelyn was good on all but two of them. And those were the two in between Dallas and Columbus. For some reason, she wouldn’t sleep on this leg and that was pretty miserable, but overall, she did great. The plane put her to sleep and when she was awake, she was in a good mood. Her ears didn’t seem to bother her that much. She tugged on them a little during the decent, but luckily for all of us, seemed to equalize them easily. Funny enough, I’ve been pretty congested lately and my ears killed me on the decent. I haven’t felt that bad since I was a little kid…but if I had to choose between me and Kaelyn to be in pain, I would pick me any day.

Only one flight was delayed and that happened to be the very last one. We boarded on time, Kaelyn took her bottle, and was nearly asleep when we were told the plane was being taken out of service and we had to de-board. We were told that they wouldn’t be giving us the stroller back and we had to change concourses (coincidentally, the same gate we had arrived at earlier that day). Luckily, we ran into good friends of ours at the airport, that were also on our flight. Thank God they were there! There was no way we could have carried Kaelyn, our two roller suitcases, her diaper bag, our drinks, and jackets without the stroller, without them. (And yes, we did do the entire trip with only carry-on’s…American Airlines charges $25 to check a bag and I just couldn’t bring myself to pay that fee.)

Being home is nice. Our bed, our couch, our routine, our rules. Fall seems to have shown up while we were away too. We left with weather in the upper 90’s and returned to highs in the low 70’s and a little bit of rain. I’m welcoming the changing of the season. The crispness of fall, the comfort foods, and the holidays. Halloween is just around the corner. I can’t believe it…