Homeward Bound - Thursday, February 28th!

Texas Bound!

 Obviously we made it back to Houston safe and sound.  Our travel day Thursday was long, but we both survived.  I was up by 5:30, followed by Tate at 6.  We were out of the house with Aunt Susan just around 7am!  At the airport by 7:30am and thankfully Aunt Susan helped us into the airport (I sooooo overpack, but I will say Tate went through his 9 pairs of underwear twice, wore each pair of pants twice...thank goodness for a washing machine!  And socks...we both changed socks 2 or 3 times a day it seemed!)

Waiting at the Ottawa Airport

Our flight ended up being over an hour delayed due to the incredible amount of snow that pounded Ottawa Wednesday day, night and Thursday.  We made our connection in Chicago by racing through O'Hare and hopping on a shuttle to the second terminal with 15 minutes to spare!  Tate was quite cooperative throughout all of that and did amazingly well with the 3 1/2 hour wait at the Ottawa airport (thank goodness for the Leappad...best birthday gift EVER...thanks Kelly!).  But that flight  Chicago to Houston was another story.  Sigh, he did nap a bit, maybe 40 minutes? and just had a hard time after that.

Asleep before we even took off from O'Hare enroute to Houston.

Thought the pillow and blanket would help.

You can see how tired he is, poor little guy.

 Lots of whining interspersed with wanting a piece of candy every 10 minutes which I would not indulge.  (His little digestive system is in for a rude awakening come Monday after I go grocery shopping this weekend!)  Thankfully our seatmate was wonderful and said that she thought he was truly a trooper especially considering how long he had been traveling by this point.  It had been 7 hours before he really started whining, so I know she was right, but it doesn't make it any easier when you yourself are so. very. tired.  But all was well.  She watched him while I used the restroom and considering that his Leappad broke sometime after we took off from Ottawa I was pretty ok.  I must say he was truly entertained by some stickers we bought the Science and Technology Museum.  He played with it the entire plane ride Ottawa to Chicago which was about 90 minutes.  He actually never even asked for the Leappad once we were in the air, but I think it broke in his backpack from the books and other stuff banging against it...I'm so sad, but it was our only casualty, so it will be ok :)

Grandmommy and Papa picked us up and we were home and happy by 430 Thursday night.

Bedtime was rough for Tate as I sort of imagined it would be.  He was sooooo very happy to be home and played and played and played until dinnertime on his beloved train table.  He was so very cute and riled up! Goodness, did he fight going to sleep like a pro!  I put him in his crib at 7:30 (which should have felt like 8:45 for him) and he was up and out of that crib more times than I can count.  I tried the SuperNanny approach of asking what he needed the first time he came out of the room and then returning him with no emotion or talking the next few times, though on the third return I was furious and let him know it.  By the 5th or 6th return I had had it and closed the upstairs gate, so he couldn't leave the 3rd floor.  I heard him racing around the room, opening and closing the door, climbing in and out of the crib.  By 8:20 I decided I had cooled off enough to deal with him.  I asked him if he needed to be rocked to help him relax and he said yes.  Ten minutes later and he was finally asleep.  He slept fitfully overnight as did I, but we slept.  And then had our fantastic day at the rodeo in spite of his 5:18am wake-up!