A traveling one, that is.

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I was traveling to visit the parents with Gabriel and both dogs, baby on my lap and dogs as carry-on. I was slightly concerned about how I would manage to fly with all three of my boys. It did feel a little circus-like, I admit.

I pushed Gabe in his stroller with the diaper bag hanging at one end and carried the dogs in a bag. When it came time to go onto the plane, I'd switch Gabe to the sling, pack the dogs into the stroller, then get to the end of the walkway, take the dogs out of the stroller and try to break down the stroller with Gabe hanging from my mid-section. I hit him a couple of times in the head with the handles of the stroller, unfortunately. Once I had the stroller broken down, I'd carry everyone onto the plane, slide the dogs under the seat, try to shove my diaper bag under there also, and then juggle Gabe in the never-ending minutes until the plane took off. I thought that was the hardest part, keeping him happy until the plane finally took off. I stood him up, sat him down, sang to him, made him look over my shoulder, out the window, at his blanket, and so on and so on until I could finally feed him close to take-off.

All my worry ended up being for nothing, though, because he slept for both flights. First from Boston to Atlanta, and then Atlanta to San Francisco. He hardly made a peep on both flights, and the dogs were also model citizens. I was terribly relieved.

Since then, our trip has been fun and fairly uneventful. We had some mishaps with the time change with Gabriel waking up at 6am for the first couple of days, but we're fine now. He also seems a bit out of sorts when we go out too much, so I've had to curtail activities, but that doesn't bother me. Other than that, we are having a great time.

Gabriel is changing by the day, which is almost scary. It has been almost 2 weeks since Josh saw him since he went to Russia for a school trip (hence the reason for our visit to California without him). I think Josh is going to find a completely different baby in his place when he picks us up from the airport. Gabe is cooing and laughing and interacting 100 times more than he was before. I've taken tons of pictures, and I can't wait to share them with you once we are home and I can connect to the computer.

My biggest problem is that I have had a touch of insomnia since I've been here, and I end up staying awake until 2am or later and then of course Gabriel wakes up around 4am and I feel like I'm not sleeping enough. I'm looking forward to climbing into my own bed with Josh and getting back to a regular routine. I'm also looking forward to a house that doesn't have a dial-up internet connection. Ick. Hope you are all well!