First Flight

Two weekends ago I took Gracie on her first flight. It was a much more stressful experience than I thought possible, but luckily all the stress was due to pre-flight issues. Once we got on the plane, things went smoothly!

Since I knew we were traveling on the Friday beginning Spring Break, I decided to take a half-day off work. That would give me time to pick Gracie up from daycare, finish last minute packing, feed Grace, and leave for the airport with plenty of time to spare. Our flight was at 7:30, so I wanted to be at Love Field by 6pm to ensure I had plenty of time to park, walk the 1 mile treck with Gracie strapped to me, check our bag, and make it through security without being rushed.

Unfortunately, rush hour was terrible that day... lots of wrecks and generally more traffic. I left our house at 5pm and didn't arrive at the airport until 6:15pm. When I pulled into the four level parking garage, half of the level I usually park on was blocked due to construction! UGH! I quickly drove to the top level because it usually has the least number of cars and parked as close to the elevator as possible. I quickly locked Grace in the Jeep front-pack carrier and power-walked to the terminal.

The lines at check-in were shorter than I expected, and I thought my luck was finally improving... wrong. Southwest was only using about half of their check-in computers, and it seemed that every family that was in line before me was completely incopetent and not familiar with traveling. Finally my turn came to check in, and I was asked for Gracie's birth certificate since she was a "lap baby". WHAT?!? I had no idea that I needed to provide that for her! I had looked on their website to see if I needed to bring any type of ID for her, but I hadn't found anything. At this point, I was almost in tears. I was trying to figure out how to get Grace's birth certificate to me when the Southwest employee asked if I had her shot records. After about 30 seconds of hesitation, I remembered that I keep her records in her diaper bag! Finally, something had gone my way. Grace and I were checked in and on our way to security!

The security line was also short and getting Gracie and her bottle through security went much smoother than I expected. We didn't even get hand-picked for a detailed search and quickly made it to our gate without about 30 minutes to spare, which turned into an hour because of a flight delay. Grace and I spent the time waiting on our plane by talking to a group of older women. They loved watching Gracie coo and play.

Finally our plane arrived and they started the "A" boarding. As I held Gracie in our spot at A40, I noticed her overalls were wet. Of course she had a blow-out! I quickly ran to the closest empty chair, ripped her clothes off and changed one of the largest poopy diapers she has ever had in the least time I've ever changed a diaper! And I managed to do it all without getting any poop on her or me! Whew. Miraculously, I ran up to the boarding line and boarded with the other A40s.

We made it onto the plane!

We got a great aisle seat in the first few rows, where I put new clothes on Gracie and got situated for the flight. No one was brave enough to sit in our middle seat, so I had some room to leave a few toys in case I needed to distract her. But that wasn't necessary. She conked out before we'd even taken off and didn't wake up until we were at the gate in Midland!

The weekend in Midland more than made up for the crazy time getting there. It's so great to see Gracie spending time with Mimi and Pop, Granny 'Bouff, cousin Luke, and Nana and PopPop.

Playing with Luke and PopPop

The return home was much better, and Gracie did a great job of staying happy. She just jibber-jabbered to anyone who would pay attention to her. Needless to say, I'm glad our first solo flight is over and the next time around Trinity will be with us!

5 Months

Wow, I have let the last month fly by without an update on our sweet Gracie. Her 5 month birth date has come and gone, and she has learned so much!

She continues to become more and more aware of her surroundings. We are playing with lots of toys these days, and she loses interest in playing with them much quicker! The only way we can get her to roll over is if we entice her with a new toy! Gracie loves watching the dogs play, and they bring a huge smile to her face. She also loves to grab at their face or let them lick her hands. We are so blessed to have such great dogs that are accepting of our newest addition to the family.

In the past month, Gracie has learned that she can bend her knees to bounce up and down when she's "standing" on someone's lap. We like to call this her dancing because it looks like she is jamming to the music in her head. Speaking of what is in this little girl's head, I really wish that we could tap into her brain to find out what she is thinking. Sometimes she has the funniest facial expressions, so I wish that I knew what was going on inside there.

Gracie is almost able to sit up on her own for long periods of time. When we sit her on the floor, she can use her hands and arms to keep her chest up in the air for quite a while. It's funny for Trinity and I to watch her wobble back and forth and finally topple over when she's reaching for a toy or dog. She looks like a weeble-wobble as she learns her balance!

Grace has finally learned to enjoy eating rice cereal. She gets rice cereal twice at school and then again at home before her final feeding. She often hums as we feed it to her, which is a trait she got from me (I hummed when I ate anything as a baby)! I am hoping that her recent enthusiasm in eating will continue as she tries vegetables next month. Hopefully she won't get the veggie-adverse pallet from her dad!

Our one struggle continues to be getting her night-time sleeping schedule down. I never thought we'd have this problem since she slept so well for her first few months of life! We finally got her bedtime moved up to around 8pm, which means we dropped that last bedtime feeding, but Grace has been waking up anywhere from 1-5 times per night. It's mostly just small cries that are easily silenced if we stick her pacifier back in her mouth. Last week I was convinced she had an ear infection because she was waking up multiple times per night and crying harder than she's ever cried before. Well, her ears were completely fine. The doctor just thinks she's going through a phase; one we are hoping will be over soon!