Flying home

Busy boys in Indy International, waiting for the first plane home

Let's just say we weren't quite ready to go back to Seattle. Now, we were plenty tired of our folks, don't get us wrong. Kidding! (or am I?) It's just that Dad and I had anticipated our two weeks home as being a kind of respite for us weary parental-types, with so many potential babysitters. It just didn't turn out that way for many reasons, a major one being Isaac's newly sprouted and insane separation anxiety. ("Mom's leaving the room! Oh, I will surely die!"). And the fact that he was still recovering from his cold, such that sleep was never a given. Sigh. No rest for the wicked. And after one peaceful plane ride from Indy to Chicago, and one hellacious, Isaac-scream-filled plane ride allllllllll the way from Chicago to Seattle, we are back, and now we have made peace with that.

You may have guessed the truth: that we have, in fact, been back for two weeks now and someone has been majorly slacking on her blogging duties. Please let me describe to you, in short, what has happened in the meantime.

1st) Hit land. Isaac's circadian rhythms are totally messed up from the three-hour time diff, and he doesn't go to sleep until 11. Dad and I wake up the next morning and go to work. At work, I discover that I am slated to deliver a presentation on my thesis research on Monday. This is Wednesday. These presentations used to take me 50+ hours to create, when I was working full-time. Take large sigh, have a few cries, ask Dad to do much baby-looking-after while I freak out. Isaac? He's fine. Boring, almost. Nothing new.

2nd) Deliver presentation on Monday (that's this past Monday, the 10th). Receive major accolades from boss, other profs, coworkers, etc. Run around the lab for about an hour floating on a large cloud with "I Rock" painted on the side. Then, surprisingly, run into Dad trying to enter my lab. This rarely happens, because if my boss catches him trying to "steal our secrets", I will be skinned alive. Dad asks me to coffee, and on the way there, informs me that he just got off the phone with the University of Delaware's Geography Department, who wants to fly him in to interview for a professorship position the next week. We are very excited, but we realize this means we switch sides now; he works his butt off for a week while I take over the bulk of the baby-looking-after. Now dear readers, at this point, I probably could have re-engaged my blogging efforts, but I chose instead to mutate into Betty Crocker, cooking home-made dinners for my family every night last week except for Friday, when Dad bolted at my Tuna Noodle Casserole idea and insisted on frozen pizza. I also cooked two desserts in that same time span. I greatly enjoyed my dabbling in housewifery, and feel my body may be the better of it for the lack of MSG.

3rd) Friday I took Isaac to Dr. Kira for his 9-month check-up. He weighs 21 lbs 4 oz and stretches to 29", lining right up with the 75th percentile lines. Curiously, through all his sickly-baby visits to the doc right before Christmas, his weight line dipped a bit, showing that he lost some weight with his cold(s), but now he is right back on track. No shots this time, but Dr. Kira did give Isaac something else quite unwanted -- some more amoxicillin for ANOTHER ear infection. This time in both ears. I probably should have guessed he was up to something when he spiked a 100-degree fever last Wednesday night, but at the time I was quite tired of hearing how there's nothing that anyone can do for him regarding such things, and I thought no more of it when it went away the following morning. Unfortunately, he is still tugging ferociously away at his ears, meaning we need to return to the doc tomorrow to obtain some more effective antibiotics. In the meantime, to keep pace with my boy, I have contracted ANOTHER cold, and now must be a single mommy for two whole days as my darling husband tries to go and find himself a job.

Welp, I think that's about it -- that and Isaac cut another tooth on Jan 2, a matching bottom incisor to go with the first one. I will leave you with some other photos I took over our final days in Indy: