In Flight stories

Sophie and I send greetings to wherever you are in cyberspace or real life - from the cold and slushy, cloudy and friendly Northern land of St. Paul, Minnesota. Where 6:30 a.m. still looks like the middle of the night, and feels a bit like the end of a long day. Where everything is backward and familiar, strange and home at the same time.

I don't really have time to be writing yet, I should be in bed now. But I wanted a chance to say hello and share a quick story or two for anyone who might be wondering "how did the flight go? how did Sophie go?" The short answer is it was long and exhausting and she did surprisingly well. She did sleep, and she did play, and she did eat well and smile at lots of people (and stare in disbelief at most of them.) She absolutely loved looking out the windows at airports - telling me about all the vehicles and the people - pointing them all out and even using gestures and sound effects to tell me about what they were doing. The up close view of planes landing on the runway at Brisbane was a real hit!

The hardest parts were waiting in long slow lines, being delayed on the ground, and take offs and landings (because she had to sit still in a seatbelt on my lap and couldn't sleep, play, eat or any of her favourite things). All the other times she was fantastic. We even got through LAX in a peaceful and relatively painless daze.

And she is adjusting really well to the time difference too. She's already back on her normal schedule. She's sleeping well and adjusting to all the new people and environments really well. She's been far less jet-lagged than me, from the very beginning.

It's been a really lovely trip so far. Just catching up with family and a few old friends at home. Here are a few photos....it is really the mutual admiration society around here with the Grandparents!

Her first true encounter with the snow today - in my sister Loren's backyard. Oh dear, that was not a happy little Aussie! The worst part was just getting dressed for it! Out in the snow itself, she was... well, see for yourself. I wouldn't say it was traumatic, but she was not exactly impressed! We will have to ease her into it and try some strategies to entice her better for the next time. I'll let you know how it goes!

"Mama. Seriously. Can we just go in and get all these ridiculous things off now?"

Ok, I just looked at all these shots again, and realized that they aren't the smilliest pics of Sophie that we've ever seen. It has been impossible so far to get a photo of her smiling! But I assure you, she is well and content, and often very happy. I just don't seem to be able to get much photographic evidence of it - the happiest shots of her moving about keep turning out so fuzzy.

Happy weekends to all. Watch this space for more stories, and hopefully some better photos, coming soon :)

Walking

It's finally happening! Sophia has taken her first independent steps. Well, she's taken one step several times, and two steps a couple of times. She stands up in the middle of the floor all by herself, and congratulates herself with huge smiles and clapping. Then she plops down and laughs. Thank goodness for all that padding- there's a lot of falling in this stage! She walks to daddy and then turns around and...well, by that time she's usually so excited, giggling and laughing clapping, that's it's more falling than walking back to mama. But it's just so much fun to see her starting to let go of that one finger that she usually pulls all around the place, and start taking a step or two by herself. Watch out world! Another toddler on the loose!

She's loving swimming lessons too. Today she took her first few paddles swimming from the teacher to mama, all by herself. She was so proud!

And climbing! One of the great things she's learning from swimming lessons is to climb. We teach her to climb out of the pool - elbow, elbow, tummy, knee, other knee...yay! (Yes, it does take quite a bit of time!) And she's using that skill in other places now too - playgyms and parks, slides, small chairs...she gets a bit grumpy that she can't quite climb up on our couch by herself yet.

All of you lovely people in Minnesota that we're going to visit - we can't wait to see you. Only 19 more days now...and I am counting down! Any tips or suggestions for travelling ( a REALLY long way) by myself with an energetic toddler just beginning to walk? Any tips for packing, entertaining, preparing, etc? please post! Now, if only I could be motivated to write all my report cards and do all my school paperwork...when all I really want to do is play with my daughter and plan and prepare for the holidays! Any suggestions for that?!

And when is Thanksgiving? I'm lazy and don't have it on any of my Aussie calendars here. Isn't it next Thursday? Or did I already miss it? Anyway, wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving - whenever it is/was.
Loveyou,
alicia

The lives of the busy...

...are too rarely documented. Ironically, when we are happiest and busiest, I seem to have the least amount of time to find something to say about it. Things have been good.
Here are some highlights.
Danny has changed careers. He has left the insurance industry and, after a long road of hard work, he is a full time pilot and flight instructor. He actually Likes his job! It's meant a few changes for us all - he now works every weekend, and pretty long hours. His days off are Wednesdays and Thursdays, which I don't work either, so we have ourselves a mid-week weekend.
Sophie has started swimming lessons - I take her there every Saturday morning for half an hour. she's learning to blow bubbles, paddle kick, and not freak out when she gets water splashed in her face. It's great fun - loads of laughs.
Dan's new schedule has led to other changes. We've started going to a new church - right across the road from the aeroclub where Danny works. He meets us there Sunday evening right after he gets off work, so we can still manage to go to Mass together as a family, which means a lot to us.
What else...
On our last "weekend," Danny and I went out and bought my Christmas present- a new camera. and then we took it for a test run with about 400 photos of Sophie in the backyard. You can see a few of them here. I think I'll put up a few more on Facebook. Umm... I might get just a little bit photo happy with this camera. I'm really liking it :)












Sophie is finally keen to walk. In the past month, she wants to be on her feet all the time. Now she pulls up on things, pushes around anything that will move, and climbs up on parents and walks them around wherever she chooses to go. She can walk with just one hand, and has just started letting go to stand for a few seconds before plopping. She's even tried lunging forward on her own a few times, but it's a quick and smiling crash. Still, at the moment, it's all about the wobbly walking everyday. :)

She likes to feed herself. She's quite good at it now, depending on what the food is. Some things are easier to actually get onto the spoon than others. She's quite an expert with yoghurt.




More events... We went to an airshow on a Saturday a few weeks back, and had a blast. A long, hot, tiring, wonderful day. I'm making a digital scrapbook of it. I just can't help myself.
Also we just got back from our first little trip away. We spent 2 days and one night on Moreton Island with Wayne & Kate and the girls. It's a little sand island just accross the bay from Brisbane. It took about an hour and a half to get there by boat. Sophie had her first boat ride, her first play on the beach, and her first night sleep away from home (since the hospital). It all went really well! A scrapblog and facebook photos of that coming soon too.
Today we're resting and enjoying being home. Next week I'm back to work, and yep, that's going well too. We're in the last term of the year - the busiest one. Just 8 weeks left of the school year, and then we're off North for Christmas!
Lots of love,
alicia and the happy little Smith family.

September Smiles - Sophie's of course!