Home again, home again

We had a great trip to Portland, but it's really nice to be home.

Erin did fine on the plane rides. She is certainly more difficult to travel with now than she was at 5 weeks, but we managed. She is very curious about everything around her and had a tough time relaxing enough to sleep on the flights . I had to do a lot of nursing to keep her calm. We also discovered the perils of disposable diapers: they leak like crazy. It was tough to keep enough clothes in her diaper bag to keep her clean all the time.

We got to see lots of family and friends and Erin liked everyone a lot. But then again, she's never really met anyone that she wasn't fond of . She also loved being around other kids. She's too little to play with them, but she is captivated watching kids play. Lucy was a constant source of wonder. We picked up Brennan at school one day and Erin was mesmerized by all of the kids playing on the playground. It's fun to see her so aware of everything going on around her.

Sleep was less than ideal while we were in Portland. We'd managed to get to a point here where she was only up once or twice a night and was going to sleep pretty easily most of the time. In Portland, we didn't really have the option of letting her do any crying and Erin was restless sleeping in a new place. Thus, we were up 4-5 times per night and she spent more time than usual in bed with me. She also got harder and harder to put to sleep as the week went on. This continued for her first night back here, but now we're settling back into more of a routine. Thank goodness, it's hard to get back from a vacation and feel way more tired than when I left.

Matt and the rest of the Prekker clan keep exclaiming on how much Erin's changed this week. I noticed it too, even being with her every day. First of all, I think that she's put on a bit of weight this week. She did a lot of comfort nursing at home and it shows. She is also much more coordinated and now manipulates her pacifier and toys much better. She's trying to get her hands on everything and we can't eat with her on our lap anymore. She's stronger and almost always wants to be standing and it takes less effort to keep her standing now. She is also very close to sitting on her own. In fact, she can sometimes sit for a few seconds before toppling over. She's also close to rolling from her back to her front. However, she's not that motivated about this rolling thing and may never follow through considering that she would end up on her tummy and she doesn't actually like that much.

We got to meet Keats while we were there. He's two months old now and is such a cutie. He's very alert and takes in the world around him, but seems to have less of Erin's constant movement. We also got some quality time with Anna. It's going to be great when they are all old enough to really play with one another. For now, Anna plays and the other two watch.