When I posted the last blog I said I hoped, by the time it published, I’d be in the air on my way back to MI. That totally wasn’t what happened. Not even a little.
Around 4pm I got a notification that my flight was delayed until 8:00pm. Sad, sad, sad. To make the most of our time, we headed over to Auntie and Dod Shuki’s house to see my cousin Joe and his kids Eli and Dalia. In the midst of the travel chaos, it was a treat. Amaya took a little while to warm up but, by the time we left, she was loving playing with Dalia.
Our men were ready for us to come home!
By the time we got to the airport at 6pm, our flight was delayed until 9pm. 🙁 We settled in at a nice restaurant and Amaya was thrilled to get to watch as much tv as she wanted. She was a phenomenal travel partner right out of the gate.
So here’s how it went down. We got to the gate around 8pm and I had awful heartburn. Awful. I was doubled over in pain. Other passengers were coming over to me offering me their meds. It was brutal. At 9pm we finally boarded our plane. At 10pm we got off our plane because of a mechanical issue. 😢 This picture of Amaya was taking at 10:30pm shortly before we boarded our new plane. Thank goodness I let her nap a little longer that afternoon. 10:30pm and she was still raring to go! (Randomly, the CEO and CFO of my company were on the flight we ultimately boarded for Detroit. Odd little meet up there at La Guardia, way too late on a Sunday night.)
Shortly after 11:20pm take off (finally!), I started feeling even worse and very sick. I told Amaya I was going to throw up and made a beeline for the bathroom. BRUTAL. It was absolutely brutal. I was so sick!! The flight attendant was amazing and tried to help me as much as she could. I couldn’t go back to my seat and poor Amaya was out there on her own. The whole time I was texting with my mom and some friends and am so grateful I had them with me while I tried to figure out what to do. After about 30 minutes, the flight attendant, Tia, told me that Amaya was starting to get anxious. I couldn’t take her in the bathroom with me so Tia helped me out and made sure Amaya was safe, happy and entertained for the rest of the flight.
I took these photos out the bathroom door. Way to go, Delta!!
My stomach started settling before we landed but my predicament was that I didn’t think I could drive us home. We were scheduled to land at 12:45am which somewhat limited options. My mom called the hotel at the airport but they were booked solid, probably from all of the flight delays. In fact, none of the local airport hotels had any rooms. If I could even get a car service, I wasn’t comfortable using one of their car seats and I didn’t have the strength to get to my car to uninstall and then install it in another vehicle. Fortunately, my mom was able to reach Jason who woke up the boys and off they came in their chariot to gather up their women. ♥ ♥ ♥
The other hurdle was that the pilot wanted EMS to meet me at the plane. UGH. It’s pretty mortifying to have the pilot ask the other passengers to remain seated until the EMTs can remove a passenger with a “medical emergency”. From what the flight attendant said, it sounds like he was particularly concerned because I had Amaya with me and he wanted to be sure I got out of the airport safely. Which I appreciate.
After I was checked out and declined transportation to a hospital, Amaya and I were wheeled to baggage claim to wait for our men.
It was 1:10am when we settled in to wait and, almost instantly, Amaya was asleep. What a trooper! I am so, SO proud of how she handled everything. The delays, the late night and, especially, my illness. She was incredible. ♥
Monday, Megan arrived at 7am so Amaya and I could sleep in. Thank goodness. We were beat.
I was so happy to be back with my boys.
Amaya was thrilled to get her “Rey” light saber.
For their birthday (or Hanukkah), Grandma Sunshine got the kids binders for their artwork. Steven is obsessed with his! It’s already full and I think he might be ready for a 2nd. It was such a fun idea and it’s really cute to see how Steven’s taken to it.
On the left is a picture in a book we have. On the right is Steven’s version. 🙂
I don’t know what happened but, as Jason was getting the kids to school on Tuesday, Sammy got sick. Look at those big, sad eyes. It looks like it was a fluke because he was totally fine for the rest of the day but SSA got a morning at home with daddy out of it.
One follow-up from our trip to NY was new hair accessories. I thought it would give me a chance to work on my hair styling skills but Amaya had other ideas and insists on doing her hair herself. Of course she does.
Doesn’t everyone sleep with 24 clips in their hair?
The Brothers always want in on the action.
Amaya has a new Rey shirt (she’s friends with Princess Leia) and put her outfit together in true Amaya fashion.
“I can NOT go to bed until this whole page is blue.”
Amaya’s regularly been falling asleep after 9pm which is an issue when she needs to be up at 6:30am. Then she naps hard, which seems to perpetuate the cycle of falling asleep late. At least for how her body operates. To help her get better sleep at night, we started cutting out Amaya’s nap. Instead, she can play with puzzles in her room while Steven and Sammy are sleeping. It’s been going well except for Friday when the desire to sleep proved too much for her. This is how Megan found Amaya at the end of nap time, snoring away.
Friday night, Jason and I went out for dinner. While we were out, Amaya asked Steffie to send me this photo of Amaya and Sammy sharing the step stool nicely.
Saturday, Steven joined me out for some errands. Looking at this, I should have realized he was under the weather. I can see it in his eyes in this photo. He was a great companion, though. “It’s just going to be me who goes with you, right Mommy?”
Sammy and Jason were deliciously lazy together. Look at how perfectly Sammy fits between Jason’s legs and how at ease he is, lounging there.
By lunchtime, it was obvious Steven was sick. He was glassy eyed and fatigued and warm to the touch. He had a fever and, when I asked if he wanted to just go to nap instead of eating lunch he said yes – and off he went for a 2.5 hr nap. Sweet boy struggled most of the night and ended up sleeping in bed with me. His temperature peaked at 102.5 which isn’t terrible but I’m a little more on edge this year with all of the flu reports and edge case stories of hospitalizations and worse. By this morning he was down to a low grade fever and had much better energy.
Sadly, Steven had to sit out of plans to celebrate our friend Nora T’s birthday. It was at a bakery/cafe and the kids were going to make pizzas and decorate cakes. He was so excited and made me promise we’ll find a time for him to make pizza and decorate a cake by himself. I’m going to work on it!
As you can see in these photos, Sammy and Amaya dressed themselves. Sammy’s shirts and shorts were on backwards. “I want to see just red on my front.”
The party was so much fun! Sammy and Amaya were a little clingier than most of the other kids, which was interesting, but Amaya did want to sit by her friend Shoshana which was cute. They decorated chef hats, held pizza dough, made personal pizzas and decorated huge mini-cakes. I was smart about the pizza-making and was sure to tell Amaya ahead of time that she didn’t need to use the red sauce if she didn’t want to. She hates pizza with red sauce and I know my girl. I could see that meltdown coming miles away if she didn’t know upfront that she could pass on the sauce.
A ton of people commented on how Sammy demolished his cake. He smashed it to bits!
When we got home, Amaya and Sammy were excited to give Steven his goody bag and watch him go through the contents.
Just two more quick things this week. We got some prints of our family photos and Amaya insisted on just photos of Sammy and Steven which she promptly taped to her wall, complete with gel hearts. I love that so much.
The letter of the week at school was R and the kids made rectangle robots. This art example is just like ones from last year where I could pick out Steven’s artwork even without names.
And that’s it for this week. Have a good one!