Sorry it's taken so long for me to finish our trip diary! We did an awful lot of stuff when we were in California.
The first thing we did when we got to Mom and Dad's house was to take a nap! All three of us were pretty tired. We woke to the sounds of little girls talking in the living room - our nieces, Katie and Emma, had arrived (oh, yeah, and their parents - my brother, Jeff, and his wife, Christina). Katie and Emma were very excited to meet Dorothy for the first time. They both hung over her, watching every facial expression and action. They both also got to have turns holding her. Emma, at 4 and three-quarters, still needed a little help to hold the baby securely, but Katie (8) cuddled her like she'd been doing it for years. They both really enjoyed helping to change her diapers. (Katie's job was to hold her hands so she didn't try to roll off the table, while Emma opened and held the new diaper so it would be ready when the old one was off). They were also very interested in her bed.
The next day was Thursday, which meant that the girls were visiting again for most of the day. In the mid-morning, Mom and I set off with Dorothy to the retirement community where my grandmother and great-aunt live, while Tom helped the girls with their computer game. Mom took Grandma to a doctor's appointment, while Dorothy and I got to spend some time with Great-Aunt Ellen. At lunchtime, Dad and Tom arrived with the girls and Christina, and we all had lunch together in the community lunchroom. Grandma's vision is mostly gone, so she wasn't really able to see Dorothy, but she still enjoyed holding her and talking to her a lot.
On Friday, we relaxed in the morning (at last!), and then headed out in the afternoon to my aunt's place in Nicklaus (about 2 hours away from my parents' house). There we saw my cousin Tyson with his wife Teena and new baby Kent (a couple of weeks younger than Dorothy), as well as several other relatives from that branch of the family. Jeff joined us with the girls for a big family dinner (quite late, since he got lost getting there!), and then we all got back on the road, heading towards my other grandparents' house. We stopped for the night after a couple more hours on the road. Dorothy did quite well on these car trips, especially if whoever was sitting next to her would keep a finger in her mouth for her to suck on.
On Saturday, we arrived in Yreka to see Dorothy's great-aunt Barbara and great-uncle Don, and her other great-grandparents. We especially wanted her to meet this great-grandmother, the only one of the Dorothys that she is named after who is still alive. (The other two are Tom's paternal grandmother, and my "other grandmother" - my "other mother" Cynthia's mother). Because of my grandparents' health, we couldn't stay terribly long at any one time with them. But we visited for a while on Saturday afternoon, and then went to dinner with Barbara, Don, and their son Darren. Unfortunately, it was getting past Dorothy's bedtime, and she had had about enough of this driving around and staying up stuff! She fussed and cried, and I ended up spending most of dinner walking around the parking lot with her in the sling to calm her, and doing some crying myself.
Since Dorothy had been getting a bit overtired, we decided to take it easy in the early morning on Sunday (Mother's Day). She had a wonderful Mother's Day present for me, though - she slept for six hours on Saturday night! So I was much better in the morning, and the three of us had a very nice Mother's Day breakfast together. Afterwards, we met up again with Mom and Jeff and the girls, to take Grandma to the wildflower show in Yreka, while Dad stayed with Grandpa. (For some reason, neither of them was interested in looking at the wildflowers).
Grandma wasn't at her best during the show, but she did look at the flowers for a while and recognized us all. The girls had a great time, though, and Emma learned to read some new words, including "Scarlet Fritillary." The girls' favorite plant was the "Skunk Bush," though!
When we went back to Grandma and Grandpa's house, they were doing much better, and both of them got a chance to hold Dorothy. Grandpa especially just settled her into his arms like she was about the thousandth baby that he had held (which she probably was - he delivered many many babies in town during his years of practice as a country doctor).
After the visit, we got back on the road to go home (convoying with Jeff and the girls). Normally a five or six hour drive, it took us almost nine hours. We had to stop regularly to feed Dorothy, eat ourselves, have bathroom breaks and/or diaper breaks for the kids, etc. Dorothy was getting pretty fussy after the first four or five hours - we joked that she was getting "saddle sores" from her car seat. As it got towards evening, we had more and more nursing stops. We started just pulling off the road in the middle of the orchards and parking under a tree while I nursed her. But at one of these stops, she had to have her diaper changed, and it was quite an accomplishment. It was really too cold to take her out of the car, so I managed to balance her on a pillow on my lap in the front seat (with a changing pad draped up my front and tucked under my chin like a napkin). Tom handed the diaper and wipes in through the window as I changed her, but I forbade any picture taking. :-) Fortunately for me, she didn't decide to do one of her projectile poops right then. ;-)
Monday was another lazy day, thank goodness. Christina came over with the girls in the morning, and they all got in some more Dorothy-holding time. Christina also helped us learn some new positions for Dorothy in the sling, one of which was comfortable enough that she and Tom both fell asleep. We also got packed up for the long flight home.
We got on the road in plenty of time to get to the airport on Tuesday, and it turned out to be a good thing. As we pulled in and got out of the car, I realized that I had left my purse, with all my ID, at Mom and Dad's house. Since there was stil an hour before boarding, they decided to rush home and try to get it back to me before we took off. In the mean time, Tom and I took Dorothy to the gate (I had to go through extra security screening because I didn't have any ID), and we kept in touch by cell phone. When they got back to the airport with my purse, Tom went out to get it (since my ticket was marked for extra security procedures), but we realized that we had forgotten even to say goodbye or let my parents give Dorothy a last goodbye kiss! Poor Mom and Dad - but they got lots of Dorothy time during the trip, and they'll be visiting us in June.
Dorothy had a rougher time on the long flight direct from San Francisco to Boston. She was really tired of the car seat, and spent a lot of time in our laps. At one point, we had to change her on the tray tables, since the bathrooms didn't all have changing tables. (We later learned which one did, but only after the first diaper change). We were mostly able to comfort her quickly when she started to cry, up until the descent. The descent into Boston is really long - about 45 minutes. We had brought a bottle of my milk to feed her during the descent, so the swallowing would help pop her ears, but she got full before the descent was finished, and cried incessantly for the last half hour or so. Poor little girl - it was also past her bedtime again, and she was terribly uncomfortable. But she finally fell asleep in the car on the way home. We had a great trip, but we were all very glad to be back home!
Posted by Elizabeth Nugent at May 31, 2004 10:43 PM