Christmas recap

The Bean has just gone down for her nap, so I have probably about 20 minutes to tell y'all about our Christmas-related adventures. (Mind you, I should probably be taking this 20 minutes to sweep the d@*! cat hair off the floors, but I just can't be bothered right now...)

Though our flight wasn't until 9:00 the day we left, I actually took the day off work to finish packing and run some last minute errands. I even got my hair cut for the first time since I was 8 months pregnant! Unfortunately, the hair stylist convinced me that I would look great with some long sweepy bangs. In fact, I do like my appearance with some long sweepy bangs, but such bangs require A) blowdrying and B) some kind of styling product in order to actually look as nice as when she styled my hair. Syling hair requires time, and time is something I do not have in abundance. It's been less that 2 weeks and I am already pinning them back with a clip... Oh well.

I also stopped by a piercing shop that day to pick up a new nose ring (I've had my nose pierced since I was 15). Anyway, I pointed out the piece of jewelry that I wanted (a tiny silver ball) to the very pierced and tattooed clerk. He insisted that I have one of their piercers fit me for it and place it. I agreed. The guy took me back, lay me on a table and inserted the jewelry. "Check it out in the mirror," he said. I went to the mirror and saw that instead of a tiny silver ball, he had put in a gigantic silver spike. Um... I'm not really a gigantic metal spike kind of girl. I had to stupidly explain that the clerk must have misunderstood which piece of jewelry I wanted, and 10 minutes later I had a tiny silver ball in my nose, a gigantic silver spike in my pocket and a hole in my wallet where $30 used to be. Sigh.

The flight to California was a huge disaster. We had originally selected a 9:00 p.m. flight home because we figured the Bean would be likely to sleep. Ha! In retrospect, it would have been hard to pick a worse time to go. The Bean normally goes to sleep at 6:00. Instead, we were arriving at the airport at 7:00, loading her in the Bjorn, and then dragging her through the bright and noisy airport. BY the time we boarded the plane, she was exhausted and fussy. But sleep was practically impossible. Our curious little Bean could not resist interacting with every single person who walked by. And between the people, the noise, the many announcements, the stewardesses who kept coming by to flirt with her, and all the associated activity, we couldn't get the Bean to calm down, much less sleep. And since she was exhausted, she was nearly manic... swinging back and forth between riotous laughter and screaming tears. Finally I resorted to standing in the aisle to bounce her while keeping the two of us covered with a dark airplane blanket to keep out the light. 20 minutes of that, and the Bean was finally asleep. She slept for the last hour of the flight.

The next evening Bean had a runny nose. Uh-oh. She quickly progressed into a vicious vicious cold. How do I know it was vicious? Because she gave it to me, Husband, Grandma and Grandpa, and ALL of her aunts and uncles (including my poor pregnant sister). It was one of the worst colds I have ever had, and it kept all of us sick for more than a week!

Christmas was fun, if overwhelming. The Bean wasn't sleeping well... a combination of the cold and all the stimulation of so new faces and places, plus the fact that she was sleeping in a strange place... she just couldn't nap, and the nights were hard. It made for a rough week. And since her sleep was so unpredictable, and she was nursing like crazy, Husband and I didn't get quite as much grown-up time out as we had hoped. We did get to go out to dinner for about an hour one night, but that was pretty much it.

Highlights of the trip?
-when the Bean fell asleep on Grandma's lap one morning
-taking the Bean to see the ocean for the first time
-seeing the Bean interact with her aunts and uncles and 5-year-old cousin
-a morning soak with Husband in my sister-in-law's hot tub
-taking lots and lots of walks
-Christmas eve with my family

As expected, the Bean was more interested in the wrapping paper than most of her presents, but I think she enjoyed the colors and activity surrounding the Christmas celebrations.

It was a tiring trip. Far more tiring than expected. A large part of that was thanks to the Cold From Hell. But we had a lot of fun too.

And.. there's the Bean. Happy New Year to all!