Friday, June 15, 2007

Quick update on our travels

The kids and I made it safely to the US! This was my first trans-Pacific solo flight with the kids and they did great. Not much sleeping--my little guys were too wired--but Barret happily gamed away at his PSP (Lego StarWars rocks!) and Caroline kept us both busy with a steady stream of requests:
"I need to go potty."
"I need my drink."
"I need food."
"I want to watch Cinderella."
(20 minutes later.) "I want to watch Dumbo."
(20 more minutes) "I want Sleeping Beauty."
(Once again, 20 minutes into the movie) "Where's Little Mermaid. No! Little Mermaid 2!"
United probably could have given my seat to someone else because I pretty much spent 10 hours crouched down in front of Caroline or walking around the plane with her.

Of course, then she konked out the last hour or so of the flight, and I had to wake her up so she could walk through the San Francisco airport. We must have looked pretty cute going through SFO: me pushing our bags and hunching under a bulging backpack, Caroline sporting OJ splattered pj's and total bedhead and holding tightly to Barret with one hand while sucking her thumb on the other hand, Barret shouldering his red backpack and dutifully shepherding his sleepy sis.

We made our connection no problem. Barret promptly went to sleep for four hours, but C got a second wind and transformed into monkey-girl. Just as we started taxi and take-off she decided to wriggle out of her seatbelt and start trying to stand on her head in the seat. I was across the aisle from her (we were in the front seats of the plane) and the flight attendent and I were sweetly yelling at her to get back in her seat belt. Which she did...except she scooted back under it upside down with her legs up the seat back and her head hanging off the edge of the seat. Imagine the impish grin on her face. As soon as the wheels lifted off the ground, the flight attendant convientiently turned his head the other way and I jumped up, re-positioned her and cinched the belt as tight as it would go for my little Houdini. Per her standard airplane MO, she kept up her antics until we began descending into Atlanta and then konked out again. So, once again, I had to wake her up and watch her zombie walk with Barret through the airport.

What a relief to see Mom and Dad and know I could finally get some rest after pulling an all-nighter! I dozed in the car, ate a little dinner and went straight to bed. The kids somehow managed to stay up giggling and watching movies with Doc and Gran until midnight. Since then we've been slowly getting back on schedule so I'm guessing by next week jet lag will be a distant memory. We did find a sure-fire way to keep kids awake during daylight hours, though: When they start to fall asleep, feed them ice cream! Then, when the sugar rush wears off and they start crashing again, feed them more ice cream!

That's it for now but thought you'd like to know we made it safe and sound.

1 comment:

Dan, Nicky, Zef and Evie said...

So glad to hear you made it withou too many hiccups! The transfer sounded hilarious! I can just imagine little Pinky's bed hair and Big B all sleepy doing the big brother thing!

Evie is now a toddler! So adorably cute, but o so sad! She is getting too big too fast!

Love and hugs to you all, we miss you

xx Nicky