From the Frozen North

We're coming to you on location from Anchorage, in the great northern state of Alaska, and I'm pleased to note that there is nothing frozen about the place. Cool and overcast and a little sprinkly, yes, but "Cool Overcast Sprinkly North" just doesn't have the same ring.

We departed Atlanta at about 2:30 yesterday afternoon for a direct 7-hour flight to Anchorage, and can I say that Caetlin had a grand total of about 25 minutes of sleep the whole day? That, friends, makes for a very long flight. Everyone around us said she did very well- those few who were willing to talk to us or look at us, that is. In all honesty, she had a few high pitched shrieks that she's so fond of right now that probably disturbed some people, and one serious screaming metldown right after she woke up from her abbreviated nap. She was not happy about being awake, and we compounded the problem by trying to shift her onto the seat to make her more comfortable. Instead of her settling back into sleep as we hoped, she woke up and started really working herself up. Bruce walked her around- I tried to take her to the bathroom but the bathrooms in my immediate vicinity were all blocked by people in the aisles. She smashed into my face with her head about then, and left my cheek sore and swollen-feeling.

After Bruce took her, that's when I started crying. I admit, it was a low point for me. It was physical pain- my face hurt!- combined with sadness that I couldn't make Caetlin feel better, plus stress over getting the evil eye from those around us, plus hormones and exhaustion. She kind of calmed down when Bruce brought her back, but she didn't go back to sleep. She didn't sleep until we got her to the hotel and into the crib, by which point she looked nearly comatose and had little bags under her eyes. It was nearly midnight, east coast time, before she had any meaningful sleep.

Otherwise the flight wasn't bad. It was stressful working so hard to keep her happy, and as expected, some of the new stuff we brought for her went over big and some of the stuff tanked. I would like to take a minute and note that I wish there weren't such a stigma against children on airplanes. I understand why there is- I've been on planes where the child near me shrieked non-stop, and it's not fun. I just wish it weren't quite so culturally ingrained, where we feel like we have to put on a three-ring circus for our children just so they will stay quiet, or we as parents are the bad guys. When reading for ideas on how to entertain toddlers on long flights, I read a number of people's comments who were like, "Umm, yeah, Benadryl." This is so insulting on a number of levels. You seriously think I should drug my kid for your comfort? The loud amped-up teenagers next to you or the lady behind you who doesn't have headphones for her DVD player, or the salesman who is laughing too loudly in your ear- they are okay, but if my kid cries, well, I better take care of that right away, shouldn't I?

Sorry, I just hated that it was so incredibly stressful for us to fly, when Caetlin was, except for that 10 minute stretch, no more annoying than any of those kinds of people I named above.

ANYWAY, we made it (the descent into Anchorage was a little bumpy and I immediately realized I was pregnant by getting very airsick, not the needing-the-bag kind, fortunately, but as prone as I am to carsickness, I never get airsick, unless, apparently, I am pregnant), lugging our ridiculous amounts of baggage, and got to the hotel, where we put Caetlin down, ordered food, discovered that the TV in the living room part of our suite is broken and would not let us watch So You Think You Can Dance, and basically went to bed. I was so tired that I stopped eating not because I was full, but because I physically didn't want to expend the effort to continue to manipulate the utensils to continue eating. Let me say that I could have, if I had been hungrier- I don't want to mislead anyone into thinking I was truly utterly exhausted, as opposed to just hyperbolically utterly exhausted. But I really was utterly exhausted. (The second kind.)

I woke up at about 2:30 local time and noticed that outside seemed to have taken on an odd orange cast, during the brief Anchorage "night."

We all awoke at about 5:30 for good, though we just kind of laid around until 7. Then we met our friends whom we are visiting for breakfast. More on our Alaskan 4th of July later.