Ah yes, the reason for the gap in postings is not unexpected. Our son, daughter-in-law, and eighteen-month old granddaughter are here for a visit. Their flight Tues was delayed a bit, then there was getting luggage, trekking to the car because I parked in the wrong terminal. I don’t care for either airports parking garage directions and I am not familiar with Fort Lauderdale Airport at night. Anyway, Tuesday was definitely a late night and the idea of flying them in with an evening arrival made much less sense than it did when I booked the tickets. Oh, apparently she was quite good on the airplane and didn’t seem overly distressed with the pressure changes. They did give her a dose of liquid cold medicine and she had her pacifier so that combination seemed to have worked.

At any rate, as always with an eighteen-month old, you are in that stage of minimal ability to communicate. I have no doubt she is fully aware of exactly what she wants to convey to us if only we could speak her language. She probably wonders how it is grown-ups are in charge considering we can’t master something as simple as “baby babble”. She has, however, picked up a couple of words, “stairs” being one. Although they live in  condo where they climb stairs to get up and down, this is her first time to be in a two-story house. She mastered “up” pretty quickly. “Down” is tricky, especially in sock feet on hardwood. So far, she waits for assistance, although I’m not entirely sure how long that will hold. Having a pool in the backyard has been a delight for her and unfortunately, the temperature has plummeted all the way to sixty today and the wind picked up. Definitely not a day for splashing about. That should be interesting to try to deal with.

Anyway, I absolutely do empathize with her nap/sleep patterns being disrupted – it’s a reality of traveling with young ones. On the other hand, it’s something all parents who travel learn to cope with.