Gloria in Excelsis Deo: Day 9: Traveling Home

Traveling home went about as smoothly as could be hoped!

All week, Joseph had been taking this photo off the table, pointing to Chris, and exclaiming, "Daddy! Daddy!"

Pointing out his daddy

At the airport

On the leg from Sacramento to Phoenix, Joseph slept in my arms the entire time and Margaret happily watched half a movie. On either side of us were two kindly grandmothers, so that couldn't have been more ideal.

In Phoenix, I'd chosen the three-hour layover rather than chance the one-hour layover with two tiny tots. With ample time, I walked about a mile round trip to take the children to the children's play area, which was so well worth it!

Since Margaret at this age naps only once in a blue moon and Joseph naps only once per day, I figured the second leg of the trip (longer at four hours) would be much harder. But God showered me with graces: when we got on the airplane, Margaret promptly asked me, "May I have the blanket? I want to go to sleep." I handed her the blanket and then Joseph curled up in my arms and nursed to sleep! Both children were nestled on my right arm, which was painfully tingling and falling asleep itself, but I'd rather have lost an arm than wake those children. They ended up sleeping for two whole hours!

Right next to us was a nice young lady on her first flight and across the aisle was a welcoming grandmother, so again we had good seatmates.

Mama rewarded me with a piece of candy for actually being quiet for a few minutes!

When the children woke, Margaret watched a bit more of a movie and I jumped laughing Joseph in my lap. When we had to turn off electronic devices, we played "I Spy" (a multiple-times daily game that whole week) using the Sky Mall catalog, which was genius if I do say so myself. It wasn't until the final 45 minutes that the three-year-old was throwing fits and the 1-year-old was inconsolably crying. That's pretty good!

We landed at 9:30 and the big kids weren't asleep till 11:30, the little kids not till 1:00 a.m. We will take these next few days to adjust all our clocks back to local time!