Whew... what a weekend!

As Melissa said earlier, I did indeed catch The Sickness. I'm not sure whether I got it from the traveling or the kid, but whatever it was moved fast and took no prisoners. Thankfully, after a crazy-fast onset and miserable peak, I seem to be back to normal - normal enough to post, anyhow...

So, as hinted at in earlier e-mails, it's been quite a trip, but Aden's been an amazing trooper. We weren't sure how the whole airport / airplane thing was going to go over, so we prepared his diaper bag as though we were going on a cross-country hiking trip - food, toys, multiple changes of clothes: the whole shebang. The airport was a little overwhelming, but he handled it in stride - once we got through the seemingly endless check-in / documentation / paying random taxes / getting through customs, we found a wide-open, lagely un-trod-upon area across from our gate, so Melissa and I spent a little time playing with Aden there, and letting him crawl around.

We weren't sure how he'd handle the airplanes, but all told, he did just fine. We had been told that he should suck on something during takeoff (so his little inner ears wouldn't get uncomfortable from the pressure). Of course, in classic chow-hound fashion, he downed his entire bottle before we'd finished getting up to speed... but amazingly, he didn't seem to care as we got up to altitude. In fact, with a little rocking, he passed out cold, and stayed asleep for over half the flight.

Charlotte was a little hairier than we had hoped - our sources had told us that immigration would take only fifteen minutes, and that the people there were very kind and helpful. And while I would not necessarily call them "UNkind" in our experience, they seemed a little too swamped to be all buddy-buddy. Basically, we got shunted off to a waiting area where we waited... and waited... and waited. Finally, when we realized that a) we only had 45 minutes left to make our flight and b) our little bundle of joy had dropped a bundle of his own in his pants, it was time to take action. Thankfully, through a stroke of luck, when I went out to see the head officer about getting ahead in the queue, she was working on our papers. So we got through that as quickly as we could, Melissa got Aden to the bathroom (where he proceeded to pee all over himself as she was changing him), and we managed to get out just in time to make our flight.

While Aden wasn't at all upset on the flight home, he was in prime Drunk Monkey mode. So we ended up passing him back and forth, trying to keep up with the crazy wiggling. Thankfully, he didn't shout too much - just a few crazy hollers at the end.

And then, like that, we were home! It was so amazing to wake up in our own bed, in our own house, in our own hometown. As I said to Melissa, "It feels bizarre to be able to walk around freely without having to wait for our names to be called over loudspearkers, or to need to present documents to someone."

On Friday, we took Aden to his first pediatrician's appointment. Dr. Rexford, his doc, was great, and proclaimed him to be in perfect health. We had been a bit worried about his weight, but she put those fears to rest, pointing out that he's a little guy, and his weight is in perfect proportion to everything else. Further, the Guatemalan pediatrician had suggested that Aden was lactose intolerant, which Dr. Rexford doubted. She suggested that we try phasing lactose formula back in, which we did, and sure enough there were no problems at all.

Saturday and Sunday were also big days, and went by in a blur. While Aden isn't quite sure about the giant dog-beast who keeps licking his face, he is positive that he'd like to catch one or both of the cats. The cats, of course, have other opinions about that. The big lesson that we received today was all about his rhythms - with the end of daylight savings today, we missed his nap window, which meant that by this evening, he was a total over-tired, overstimulated mess. Total meltdown ensued, but after an abbreviated bathtime and quick change, he was down for the night - he fell asleep in a record-breaking fifteen minutes. Lesson learned - no skipping naps from here on out!

We've decided to try to keep the blog up, both as a record for our far flung friends & family as well as for ourselves. Posting may become a little more spotty now that we're not cooped up in a hotel room, but we will do our best to keep it as regular as possible. And without further ado, here's a brief pictoral summary of the big weekend.