Traveling and Coming Home

Before I begin, let's be clear on a few things.

Overall, Elliot was a great traveler on the big trip.

He chilled in airports from Stavanger...

to Copenhagen...
to Sacramento...

(And all parts in between...)

And while, occasionally he'd rather play underneath the plane's bassinet than sleep in it, other than one minor incident*, he was calm and sweet during every single one of the nine plane trips.

And for the most part he played or slept in his car seat.**

(Though often it was because he had good company on the way.)

(Big D/Nee Nee may not have the chops or a full command of the lyrics, but she has the enthusiasm. You've gotta love it. We all did, especially Elliot.)

And, when necessary he chilled so we could have dinners.

As long as we made sure he had lots of wiggle time, he slept pretty much anywhere...

If there were no cribs, we made him soft beds on the floor beside us...

Or underneath tables out of the way...***
He chilled in various strollers...Awake...
And asleep.

He spent hours strapped to my chest.

And helped with the luggage...
And he loved it.****

Husband and I planned for weeks how we could make the travel easy on Elliot and manageable for us. We (probably over)packed toys and clothes for every climate. We brought his familiar blankets and did the math of the time zones. We thought of almost every single thing, except one...

Jet lag.

For Husband and me, jet lag is merely an inconvenience. We just add in a day or two for readjusting sleep when we get home, but the trip to/from California***** is particularly difficult due to the nine-hour time difference.

But for Elliot, it's been brutal. He's pretty confused about whether it's day or night. We can't keep him up for very long because if he wants to sleep, he'll just slump over and at a certain point, it just gets to feel like we are being mean.******

So during the night, he thinks it's time to hang out. We do not. This difference in opinion has made for some challenging overnights thus far.

Also, he has a cold. Not a big cold. And not the swine flu. Just a bit of traveling funk that has settled in his little nose. This does not help.

So to answer the question: Yep, Elliot is an awesome traveler.

Coming home'r?

Not so much.

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*In retrospect, the incident was much more minor than it felt at the time.

On the last long haul flight, going from Chicago to Copenhagen, Elliot was cooked. It was 10pm--in that time zone--he had been dozing, the plane was hot and as we were loading up, he decided he had HAD it.

For about ten minutes (Husband says seven) he screamed. And when I say screamed, I mean a world class Elliot scream, with just enough breaks inbetween to catch his breath. Within close enough range, eardrum can bleed, dogs howl and small children cower. And if you didn't know him, you may think a life threatening aneurysm is imminent.

Also, we were sitting in Economy Extra, which for those unfamiliar with SAS, are the sweet seats, just a wee bit smaller than in Business (which is really First Class). So everyone around us, including us of course had shelled out extra dough (or kroner) for a nice comfy ride.

And let me tell you, a few of them were not so kind, which I can sort of understand.

But we (Husband and I) were apologetic and doing everything we could to calm him.

(Elliot could not have cared less. Rude baby.)

But then he calmed. The moment passed and he slept for most of rest of the nine hours.

And the one especially assy couple who glared at me for the entire ten/seven minutes spent the rest of the nine hours talking loudly, flipping their lights on and off and making snarky comments. Nine hours. Seriously.

I hate them.

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**Once he cried for about two hours on a drive in Sonoma, but it was windy and cold when he got out of the car, he'd been in the car a LONG time and the view was not great from where he was sitting. Really, I felt almost the same way.

The second time he cried in the car seat was on a lightless stretch of road called 985 which is the highway leading from the north side of Atlanta on the way to Big D's house. He had been asleep and woke up in pitch black dark and he screamed.

Husband thinks it was because he was cooked from a day of traveling (Sacramento to Atlanta, then a drive to BigD's),

I think it was because he'd never been in the full darkness. His entire life, up until that point, had been in spring/summer Scandinavia, during the time of 23 hour sunlight. And even in California where we'd been for the first ten days of his American tour were much like home...he'd been sleeping in rooms with either a nightlight or sunshine creeping underneath the shades. Then one day he wakes up in pitch black full darkness.

Scary.

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***This photo was taken from Andrea and Deena's apartment in San Francisco. There are earthquakes there. So sleeping under a table=comfort and safety.

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****More strangers than I can count, commented, "Ohhhhhhh That's a happy baby." And he is.

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*****To/from Georgia is not nearly as bad because it's only six time zones, which makes more difference than you would think.

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******This is Stavanger, not Guantanamo Bay.