On the way back....

We will be heading home tonight. Really it is tomorrow morning, but that is only because it is at 12:50AM!!!!!! I know that they think this will help with adjusting to the jet lag since I will get to sleep on the plane, but how do you tell that to your cranky and sleepy 2 1/2 year old! Any, I have a lot of pictures and a lot of stories to share. I will start with one picture for now, which is the first picture of this trip and happened on our flight out....

Ari was such a sweet child the whole way. She REALLY tried to be good and helpful and I was so impressed with her. Her dad and I had our arsenal of books, DVDs, games, and songs and between all these, somehow with a child screaming 2 rows away the whole trip, she was able to get some sleep. I didn't get any sleep except 45 minutes while her dad distracted her, but overall the flight could have gone WAY worse. Doesn't she look like a little angel? Oh... and as you can see in this picture, I brought her pillow along for the ride so she had a piece of home. She also had her pacifier and her froggy and that made everything great as far as she was concerned. One thing I learned from the trip was that I needed to say, lets go make new friends instead of change a diaper. Why argue over changing the diaper, when it can be a part of the making new friends routine. Every time we would get up, people would joke with her and play with her. I have mentioned in my mommy group before that El Al is a SUPER child friendly airline and they once again lived up to their reputation. The changing tables have these posters near them so that the kids have something to look at and be distracted during the change, they have great food as well as providing child friendly meals if ordered ahead of time, they handed me a puzzle game out to all the children, and the crew LOVES kids! They kept asking her her name, one grabbed her in a friendly way to tickle her and play with her, another was giving her high fives and asking how old she was, and another was laughing with her. There are always so many children on the flight so while it can be a negative at times like the child who screamed the whole way, it is also a great positive because you never have to feel self conscience if your child gets mad at some point.

Anyway... since I still have to pack for tonights crazy late flight... I'm off, but when we get back to San Diego, I will make sure to do a big update about the whole trip. :)

Cheers!