cross country

so elenora and i are in WA state! we left friday night from b-town. ella was so good on the plane. she was so interested in everything. even though it was after her bedtime when we took off, she just smiled at everyone and looked around. at first they had us in the middle of two seats, but they switched it up so that we could have two seats to ourselves. it was the last row, though, so i couldn't recline. i just held elenora the entire flight except for about a half hour where she fell asleep and i put her on the empty seat next to me. but mostly she did sleep for the entire flight, and was so cute falling asleep in my arms. she just snuggled down and let her eyes slowly close. in the middle of the flight she woke up and was looking around. we were following the sun, so she was looking out the window and then saying "oh!" and looking at me like "do you see this mom?!" she thought it was pretty cool. i don't know how she knew it was so cool. ella probably only cried for about a minute total during the flight.

when we arrived in seattle it was 10:00 pm local time. so it was one in the morning for us. elenora was so interested though that she was very pleasant. my brother and his family picked us up (their first time meeting ella!) and my niece entertained elenora for at least an hour (she had her laughing in the first ten minutes). but with all the excitement ella had a hard time falling asleep and by the time we got to d.'s house she was crying very hard. i put her straight to bed and she slept until 6:04 am local time.

she wakes up at 6:04 am at home, too. how's her biological clock?

we played around and she got a good morning nap (two and a half hours) and then we went out to lunch in Burlington, WA, at a really yummy italian restaurant. ella sat in the high chair and ate gerber "sugar" puffs, as j. calls them. she's amazingly good at picking them up with her finger and thumb and putting them right in her mouth. we all went to a children's museum afterwards and played in the toddler area with the blocks and things. it was a lot of fun, but it really got in the way of elenora's afternoon nap time. by the time we headed home it was almost 4 pm and she was exhausted. she fell asleep sweetly for a little while, but then woke up for the last ten minutes of the car ride and just cried. she hasn't cried this hard in a long time, so i know she's having a hard time with the time adjustment.

i started her bedtime routine right away. she had a good dinner, but at tubby time i blew up a duck tub that d. picked up for this trip and elenora was just terrified of it. she refused to have a tubby. i felt so horrible. i just put her jammies on her and nursed her and put her to bed. poor baby. i'll have to figure out what to do about the tub.

after ella went to bed my brother and i went for a walk. this area is just so gorgeous. you can see the sound from their house (a large body of water with large land masses rising out of it and huge mountains covered in snow in the distance). it is more summer here than it was at home--foliage-wise. we walked to the water and down along the beach on the rocks. i can't wait to take elenora outside today.

this morning she woke up at 6:06 am local time. we played with toys and with lorien and elenora was crawling after the cat. she's down for a nap now. i'm skipping church because i just feel like it's more important for elenora to get a normal schedule again, and church was right in the middle of her morning nap. she really loves her routine, and it's so disruptive when she's thrown off it. i'm finding i just have to really protect that.

so, we're good. the flight is behind us. we get a few days to relax and see the beauty of this area and visit with family. then momby arrives next wednesday and we're like a boomerang back across the country.