We're in California

This is an update to let you all know that John and I are visiting my family in California while Chris holds down the fort and provides for us in North Carolina. I just discovered that I left my USB cable at home so unless I bother to buy one, I won't be uploading any photos until we are home in a couple of weeks.

The flights here went amazingly well. We had two layovers and, despite all the transitions, John did great. I think he is simply at a very good age for air travel (although not for car travel as there he is completely restrained). We got him his own seat this time because he is a bigger boy and there is less room available on my lap now. Most of the time, John was thrilled to play with the seat belt buckle. Also, he enjoyed his first-ever coloring books, which I saved for the flight. We did have a close call on the first plane: The armrest consisted of a dozen colorful, tempting buttons to control the television and other things. Unfortunately, one of those other things was the button to call a flight attendant . . . and the arm rest did not retract. John quickly discovered that that button among all of them caused a dinging sound when pushed, so he pushed it over and over and over again. I finally hailed down a steward while everyone was still taking their seats and asked if he could disable the call button to John's seat. He said no and that "You'll just have to tell him not to push it." Internally I scoffed and thought, "Well, I can tell that you're childless!" Thank goodness, I had success by wrapping a blanket multiple times around the armrest, causing John to forget that the buttons were there.

We almost missed our third flight. The layover was only 45 minutes and our second plane landed late such that the third plane was already boarding. Thick, pregnant Katherine, wearing John in my Ergo and pushing a stroller containing my heavy backpack had to run through the terminals for 10 minutes straight to get to the gate just before they closed the doors. Considering that one flight of stairs does me in these days, my lungs were on fire for many minutes after that!

We even made it through the incident on the last flight in which John threw up voluminously in his seat. Despite his panic at having WET STUFF all over him, he didn't cry and I got him cleaned up and the seat wiped down with disinfectant. John remained clad only in a diaper for the short remainder of the flight until we could get to a proper airport bathroom to change him into a clean outfit.

Despite all of that and even after the vomiting incident, I had passengers on all the flights compliment John on what a good traveler he was. One mother asked if I fly often with him because he is just so good at it. I replied that I spent the first year of our flying together standing in the aisle, wearing him in a sling, rocking while he screamed all the way across the country, so on this flight John was just repaying me with some much-deserved kindness!

Poor little boy woke up at 4:00 a.m. EST on travel day and absolutely would not go back to sleep despite the fact that he slept in his day clothes and all I did was quietly change his diaper in the dark and put him into the waiting vehicle. He didn't fall asleep till 6:30 p.m. EST! Then he slept for 12 hours, waking up at 3:45 a.m. local time. My mom and stepdad were so excited (or sympathetic?) that they insisted on waking up with us. By 7:00 a.m. I felt like we'd been awake for half the day!

We went on a crisp early walk then, enjoying this town's wonderful biking/walking trails and visiting a kiddie park. John was happy to see several doggies, two kitties, and a skunk. Then this afternoon we went to another park with my dad, although it was too hot by then to let John play for long.

John fell asleep for the night at 4:00 p.m. local time, so I expect to be awoken by him very early in the morning again. I've stretched myself till almost 8:00 p.m., but now it is time to go to sleep!