I'm taking over!

Mom is a very busy woman. Very busy. She would like to update this blog more often, but (truth be told) I've been a bit needy lately. Especially at night. These damn molars!

So, I told her that I would take over the blog. Just until she can get her act together, or I start sleeping more than 3 hours at a time, whichever comes first.

Now. To give you an update of my life since my birthday.

I'm learning learning learning. I recognize many words people throw at me, and the ones I don't, well, I just fake it.

I can say a lot of words now. Off the top of my head, I can say the following: woof (that's the sound a dog makes), bah-be (that's what I used to be...I'm a toddler now), and bubble. Of course I can say mama and dada, but I choose not to, since they're pretty much at my beck and call and I really have no reason to call them by name.

Speaking of mama and dada, they've been signing to me since I was about six months old. I could tell that they were getting frustrated that I wasn't signing back. I decided to throw them a bone and sign a few things (only when I feel like it, mind you). I can sign "nurse", "bird", "more" and "wash". I know they really want me to sign "potty". I prefer to keep them on their toes on that one.

I'm a pro at clapping my hands. I understand "clap your hands" in Chinese and English. I've now begun to try snapping my fingers. I try to learn from mommy on this one, since she is a much better snapper than daddy, and she can do it with both hands. If only I could produce the loud sound that she can, I could just snap my fingers at them all day and have them wait on me.

Wow, is it naptime already? I need to go upstairs now, but I'll check back soon!

Self Portrait

Happy Happy Birthday Baby

Happy birthday, sweetheart. You are loved and cherished beyond imagination. You have brought me and your daddy such joy this past year. We cannot wait to see what's in store for us.

I am so lucky to be your mommy.

Our girl, the genius

Yes, I realize I'm a bit biased. And maybe she is not quite the level of genius, but she is definitely smart. She's been alert since day one, and now I realize what she's been up to all this time.

She's been quietly observing us, every day, and filing all she sees and hears away into her brain, knowing that one day she would be able to imitate us. That time has come.

She takes keys and tries to put them in the door. She takes cloth diapers and "folds" them. She takes clothes out of one drawer and puts them in another one.

The one thing that blows my mind is something that most babies don't do at this age.

She pretends.

She pretends to eat something from an empty spoon and smacks her lips like she's really enjoying it. Then she'll scoop the spoon into an empty bowl and hand you the (still empty) spoon for you to enjoy. Darren and I have enjoyed plenty of air, smacking our lips like it was lobster. Once she even held the spoon to Kody!

She is one silly little genius.

Tugaloo State Park

I was totally dreading it, but we finally took Kora camping for the first time. Not that I hate camping. I love it. But the thought of taking a newly-walking, poorly-sleeping, almost-one-year-old on a camping trip just made me exhausted. And if that isn't enough activity, we invited our friends who have a two-year old boy along! Not sure what I was smoking when I agreed to this.

However. I have to say the trip far exceeded my expectations. We went hiking, played in the lake, played in the playground, ate good food. We even had a (gasp!) campfire despite the obvious danger to our toddling little ones. After the kiddos went to sleep the adults finished off a couple of bottles of wine and topped everything up with some nice smoky s'mores.

That's a pretty large bass if you compare it to Kora

Speaking of sleep, Kora had one of her best nights that night! I swear I would set up a tent in the backyard and sleep out there every night if I thought she would keep that up.

Hamming it up for the photo

Posing after dinner

Blowing bubbles with Andrew and his dad

Our McMansion Tent

Our campsite

Our evenings

Kora likes to spend her evenings perfecting her new skills. On this night, it was walking. With a practice throw at the end.

Busy night September 21, 2010 from Minh-An Pence on Vimeo.

Did a month already fly by? Again?

Turns out time goes by faster when you have a kid. Unless you're trying to put the kid to sleep, at 3AM, in which case it drags on and on.

Which brings me to Kora's sleep. Or sometimes lack of it. That girl definitely keeps us on our toes. For the past month she has been working on walking on her own, and thank goodness she got that down, so her sleep has resumed to crappy. Note: crappy is a step up from what it's been...insanely awful.

There were a couple of nights where she woke up between 2 and 3 and just wanted to play and talk, and it would take about an hour or more to put her back to sleep. She would just be sitting there in complete darkness chatting away about her day (I can only assume) and trying to crawl off the bed.

But...this girl can walk! Pretty well! I'll upload some videos of her soon. She has even started trying to run, which is not so good since she usually ends up falling, but it is crazy to watch!

She now has 7 teeth and the 8th one will pop out any day now.

Some of the things she loves right now:

• Playing with water, wherever she is (fountain, bathtub, pool, Kody's water bowl).
• Playing outside where she does things like collect acorns and rocks (At least now she doesn't immediately just put them in her mouth.)
• Reading books and magazines
• Patting Kody
• Eating
• Throwing a ball
• Watching birds and insects
• Nursing (yes, she is a definitely a booby girl)
• Hanging upside down
• Playing in the pantry
• Riding in her carseat (ha ha! just kidding!)

Just one more month and she'll be ONE YEAR OLD. How did this happen so quickly?? Next thing you know she'll be heading off to Georgia Tech (or her safety school, UVA).

Some fun videos!

You've been patient, I know. Here's what you've been waiting for!

Kora having a grand old time with her puppy Sadie

Kora demonstrating the proper way to eat pho noodles

Kora pushing her stroller around the house with Daddy

Kora reading her ASPCA magazine (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals). She likes it because it has many pictures of cats and dogs.

Swimming in our friends' pool. This was her first time in a pool

Kora's "schedule"

Somewhere between 6 and 9 months of age, most babies tend to settle themselves into a '2-3-4' daily schedule. This means that a baby will take a morning nap about 2 hours after waking up for the day, then will take the afternoon nap about 3 hours after waking up from the first nap. Finally, the baby will go to bed for the night about 4 hours after waking up from the afternoon nap.

Kora pretty much has put herself on this schedule. She wakes up around 7:30AM, goes down for her nap between 9:30 and 10 and wakes up around 11ish. She then goes down for her afternoon nap sometime between 2 and 2:30, and sleeps for about an hour. She then goes to bed around 8:30. So, more or less, we know her schedule.

What we don't talk about normally, is her nighttime 'schedule'. She is kind of on a '3-2-1' schedule. This means she sleeps her longest stretch first - 3 whole hours. Then her second stretch is about 2 hours, and finally she wakes up about every hour until 7:30 when she's up for the day. This is one of the reasons why I get so irritated when people ask, "is she sleeping through the night?". No. She's not. Well, actually she kind of is. It's not like she's partying in the middle of the night. She wakes up to pee and to nurse. But for the most part, she stays asleep.

Many people talk about 'training' their babies to sleep by letting them cry. They'll talk about how babies needing to learn how to 'self-soothe' and fall asleep on their own. Yes, I realize that by enduring my baby cry her eyes out for a few nights, she may learn how to fall asleep on her own. But I don't. I'm not going to write about the research done that shows it harms babies. Another blog has a wonderful post about this already. What I will write about is that there is a very good reason why breastfeeding puts both babies and mamas to sleep. It is natural mammalian act. Babies are not meant to sleep through the night (although some lucky moms have babies that do quite early in life). As sleep-deprived as I am, I will not rush my baby into this. My convenience will not trump her development. There will be a day when I look back on this time and realize that my baby doesn't need me in the middle of the night anymore, doesn't need my cuddles and kisses, doesn't need my milk. I do not want to look back with regret that I didn't give her enough when she needed it.

Very short but very cool update

Last night Kora was nibbling on a cucumber at dinner. She stuck it out to me so I took a little bite out of it and said thank you. Then I said, "Can you give some to daddy?". She hesitated for just a second, looked at Darren and stuck the cucumber out towards him!! Wow! She understood!

Oh my sweetness.

Aaaand she's off!

We knew it wouldn't be long before she started crawling. I suppose she is more or less "scooching". One foot is walking while she drags her other leg underneath her.

This video was taken on the 14th of June 2010.

You can see at the beginning how much she wants to touch the door stopper, but she doesn't actually do it. She whines a bit, turns away, but keeps looking back at it with longing. About a week prior it scared her with the boing-oing-oing sound, and even though she is attracted to it, I think she's afraid it'll make that sound again.

In related news, she is standing up a lot now, and last night even stood for a second on her own! She wants to be walking so badly. D and I think that she'll never really master crawling, and will probably be walking in the next month.

She is so musical, don't ya think?

Here is our darling little girl playing with her newest toy, a wooden xylophone, courtesy of Andrew T. and his parents.

We think she's a natural!

Uh oh

She can now pull herself to standing very easily in her crib. T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

Yeah, I did it.

Ha ha ha, you guys are totally in for it. I'm bustin outta here soon!

(Kora's evil laugh)

Memorial Day Weekend FUN!

Wow. So what didn't we do this past Memorial Day weekend?

First of all, Darren's parents (AKA Gammy & Pop) came over Friday afternoon. They were preparing to babysit Kora while Daddy and Mommy went to a wedding. It was the FIRST time we ever left Kora, so you can imagine our hesitation and anticipation. I think Kora knew something was up because she was awfully clingy all day. We snuck out at about 5:15. The wedding was a lot of fun (thanks Katrina & Linc!) and we got home around 9:30 to Kora sitting on Gammy's lap playing. Apparently Kora gave them a bit of trouble and cried and screamed for about 45 minutes while they tried to put her to bed. As soon as they brought her downstairs, she stopped. Sigh. As soon as she saw me, of course she started crying. So here I am trying to undo my dress while carrying her upstairs. I nursed her to sleep and she actually had a record sleep time of 3 hours! Unfortunately that has yet to be repeated.

By the way, I know many of you just read that and gasped. Yes, she is 7 1/2 months old now and pretty much wakes up every 1 -2 hours between 9PM and 8AM. It hasn't been a problem until recently when I started working again. We're going to work with her over the next few months to get her to sleep longer stretches at night. We refuse to let her 'cry it out'. Instead we have a book called "The No Cry Sleep Solution" which takes longer, but is much more our style.

Saturday afternoon we picked up Minh-An's sister, Julie, at the airport. We hadn't seen Julie since Christmas. We then immediately got on MARTA (the public transportation here) and went to Piedmont Park, where the Atlanta Jazz Festival was going on. As a New Orleans Jazz Fest devotee, I knew I was going to be a bit disappointed, but it was still pretty fun. And free! We saw Esperanza Spalding, an amazing bass player and singer that I actually saw in New Orleans last year.

Beautiful midtown Atlanta skyline from Piedmont Park

Sunday was a big day. Because we missed New Orleans Jazz Fest this year, we told ourselves we would put some Festy music on Pandora, cook some Fest food, and have people who are into Jazz Fest over for the afternoon. In preparation for this event, Darren ordered 75 pounds of live crawfish. Yes. 75 pounds of live crawfish. They were delivered via FedEx on Saturday (I didn't know you could do this!), so Darren was in charge of keeping them alive until Sunday. This consisted of hosing them off periodically, and keeping them on ice.

Speaking of which, I learned a very important lesson about eating crawfish. Apparently you're not supposed to eat them if the tail is straight. Good advice. A bad crawfish can linger in your mouth for hours. I know from experience.

Back to our Fest Party...Mike Brisson and Andrew Swagler showed up early to help set things up. It was such a nice, overcast day that we decided to set the table up in the backyard. We put some fans up to keep the mosquitos away. Guests started showing up around 12:30. Besides the crawfish boil, Darren made his awesome gumbo. Everybody brought their beer of choice, and Mike brought over his homemade ice cream, in the festive flavor of bourbon pecan. Yum!

Trying to juggle Kora and a crawfish

Sorting through the live and dead crawfish

Julie and Andrew relaxing after the big feast

Monday was pretty relaxing. However, we did make Crawfish Monica (or a cheap knockoff of the Jazz Fest original) for dinner Monday night, and we had the Brissons over again. And again with the delicious homemade ice cream.

On Tuesday we went to the zoo for the first time! Darren and I went ahead and purchased annual tickets because we figure we'll be going quite a bit over the next year with Kora. It sure is nice living so close to the zoo and the aquarium. Zoo Atlanta is actually pretty nice. There was a nice bonus as the gorillas just had a baby about a week ago. We got to see the mama gorilla cuddling and nursing her baby. So sweet. The petting zoo is great, too. Kora was really interested in all of the animals, and touched a goat.

Rowwwrrr! What a cute lioness

Julie left Tuesday afternoon, and we've been in recovery mode since. What a great weekend!

She may have blonde hair and blue eyes...

but my baby girl is Asian through and through! Here she is eating some sweet potato off my chopsticks.

Kora eating with chopsticks from Minh-An Pence on Vimeo.

Kora sharing a pear with daddy

sharing a pear with daddy from Minh-An Pence on Vimeo.

two!

I realized that we had not written about this.

One of Kora's teeth poked out on May 4th. Well, it now has a partner! Four days later, her other bottom tooth poked out! She has two visible teeth on her bottom gum. No wonder she's been a bit fussy lately!

Got a photo to prove it!

Baby Led Weaning, or How to Introduce Foods to Your Baby in a Fun Way

Now that Kora is over six months old, the question many people ask is, "has she started solids yet?". Well, the answer is yes and no. Yes she's had some solids. No, not the kind (or way) most people think.

We are using the "Baby Led Weaning" approach. It allows us to let her eat pretty much what we're eating with her own hands. For example, last night we had a stir-fried squid dish (thanks honey it was yummy!) and some stir-fried bok choy. We sat Kora in her little booster seat and put a piece of bok choy on her tray. She picked it up, tasted it with her tongue, and started sucking on it. When she was done (bored) with one piece, we would give her another. We can tell she is done by the way she dramatically tosses it away.

This method allows her to go at her own pace, exploring the foods that she sees us eating, and swallow some of it (which we find out a day later). It's non stressful for her and for us. We're able to all eat at the table and eat our own food. Darren and I actually have conversations at the table!

ooh look! something orange. i wonder what it is...

oh, yum.

She has gagged a few times, but the gag reflex in babies is close to their mouths, so they very rarely choke. Of course, we keep an eye on her at all times.

To date, she has had apples, boiled carrot sticks, boiled green beans, bok choy, lettuce, avocado, and Japanese sweet potato. It can get pretty messy, but it's so much fun. Plus, I think Kody is starting to like her more since he found out she'll drop food.

Why won't you paparazzi let me eat in peace!

Now to answer the question on everyone's mind: Are you going to feed her rice cereal? The truth is, I don't know! I bought a box just in case, but I haven't felt the urge to give her any, especially now that I hear the whole sleeping longer on rice cereal is just a myth. As she eats more foods I'll update the blog.

My First Mother's Day and the Aquarium

This past weekend was Mother's Day. My first one. Sometimes I still can't believe I am a mom and responsible for this cute tiny thing. I feel like a kid myself usually!

My mom was in town. Not for Mother's Day; it was actually a coincidence! She was here to meet Kora. More on that later.

Daddy and Kora let me sleep in (actually they almost always do this for me), then D fixed mom and me a wonderful breakfast sandwich with fried egg, arugula and prociutto on ciabatta. Yum! Daddy and Kora made me a beautiful card with my favorite flower, the zinnia, and Kora even signed her name (I think it was her name...maybe she wrote I love you, it's hard to tell). For dinner he made lamb shanks over orzo. Man it was so good. He knows the way to my heart. I don't need gifts...just feed me!

So my mom was in town this weekend. Kora took to her right away and they played and laughed. On Monday we went to the Georgia Aquarium. As much as I rag on Atlanta, I do really like the aquarium and it's only 10 minutes away. D and I went ahead an bought annual passes so that we can take Kora over the next year as often as we want. Kora had a ball as you can see from the pictures.

One thing...everybody assumed Kora was a boy because she was wearing navy blue. They didn't even ask, they just automatically assumed! One woman even commented on how handsome she is. Really people? Does blue automatically mean boy?

Playing with Kora on the changing table

I haven't had time to post something new so here is yet another video from our Oz trip. This was taken in a public baby changing station in a downtown Melbourne building.

Kora on the changing table from Minh-An Pence on Vimeo.

Australia Video Compilation

Starring...of course, Kora

Untitled from Minh-An Pence on Vimeo.

Kora working on her crawling skills

This was taken the morning of April 11th at Tim and Stephen's home.

Kora working on crawling from Minh-An Pence on Vimeo.

Australia Holiday

Wow, so jet lag this time around really kicked my ass. We've been home for a week and last night is the first night I had a good night's sleep. Well, as good of a night's sleep you can have with a six-month old, i guess. Speaking of which, Kora turned six months old on Tuesday! I can't believe that just six months ago she was a tiny infant. Now she's a little girl with a definite mind of her own.

Our wonderful holiday in Oz was just over 3 weeks. Our hosts, Tim and Stephen (Tim is Darren's brother for those of you who don't know and Stephen is his partner), made sure we had an incredible time.

I have to admit, Darren and I had no idea what to expect. We'd heard that this is the best time to travel with a baby, before they get mobile, but we really pushed the limit by opting for such a faraway destination. The total trip time was right around 32 hours (this includes 3 flights and the layovers). Well, I have to say that Kora did really well. It was exhausting keeping her happy and entertained, but we succeeded. Mostly. The last leg (Sydney to Melbourne, about an hour flight) was the one that pushed her over the edge. It was extremely bright and she was tired. She cried and screamed for about 10 minutes at the beginning of the flight, then again for about 10 minutes at the end of the flight. During the flight I kept her quiet by holding her and bouncing her in the aisle. I was ready to cry myself. Oh well we got through it. I'll also add that she was not happy to then spend another 20 minutes in a carseat after all that!

The first few days were spent relaxing and recovering from the traveling. We took walks into one of the local villages. Such a cute town. There's a butcher, an organic produce shop and a few bakeries. Love it! Walkable communities rock.

Stephen cooked for us every night which was a big treat. He's an exceptional cook. Of course we had Australian wine every night.

We took day trips to Healesville animal sanctuary and the town of Daylesford (known as a spa town). We were lucky enough to have beautiful weather for our many hikes and walks. We took the train into downtown Melbourne many times. I love that city. Darren told me before we went that I would love it. I didn't realize how right he was. It is such a vibrant city, but it also retains so much European charm as well. It is the opposite of Atlanta. Atlanta likes to bill itself as a vibrant city with a lot to offer, but whenever someone visits I try to think of the places to take them in Atlanta, I can barely think of anything (aquarium anyone? Coke museum? how about a big granite rock?). Melbourne is just so alive. We barely scratched the surface of the city...I can't wait to go back.

Darren, Kora and I on the waterfront

The second week we started our road trip along the Great Ocean Road. We were nervous about how Kora would do in the car since she is usually not happy being strapped in the carseat. Tim and Stephen routed our trip so that we wouldn't have to spend more than 3 hours a day in the van, and those 3 hours were further broken up by stops. It turned out fine. Yes, she cried a bit. When that happened we would usually pull over and I would nurse her to sleep and put her back in the carseat.

So, we went first to Torquay to stretch our legs and go to the visitor center to route the rest of trip. This is also where Kora went to the beach for the first time. I think she really loved the squishiness of the sand. She wouldn't stop bouncing! Then the tide came in and scared her! Baby steps...


Our next stop was Apollo Bay. Again, we walked along the beach and around the town. We stayed overnight here. I have to add that this was the only night we did not have wine. :-)


The next day we did a beautiful hike through a rainforest in Otway National Park.
Halfway through the hike Kora decided she was hungry and wouldn't stop fussing. So, I nursed her while hiking! That was a first.

Later that day we stopped at the Twelve Apostles. Beautiful! Darren counted and I think there are only 8 apostles left, due to erosion.

Twelve Apostles

Around this time Kora's GI system decided it would change things up a bit and go from pooping once a day to 5-7 times a day. This was oh so pleasant while on the road. I think it had to do with a change in my diet. She still has yet to change back.

We then left the Great Ocean Road and headed north to Penola (leaving the state of Victoria and entering South Australia). This town is smack dab in the Coonawarra wine region. Since South Australia's wines are far superior to Victoria's (thank you to Stephen's indoctrination), we were not allowed to taste wine until we were here. It did not disappoint!

Daddy sneaking a sip of wine while Kora's not looking

Finally we headed towards the Grampians National Park. Here we did some beautiful hikes, and we stayed in a creaky cabin on the outskirts of the park. Right outside the cabin at least 30 kangaroos congregated. I was so in awe of this cool animal. Kora was too. But then again she is in awe of any animal, as long as it is moving.

Mommy kanga with her joey. We watched her nurse him. Being a huge fan of nursing, especially in public (shameless!), I loved it.

Kora and mommy in the Grampians N.P.

Kora, mommy, uncles Tim and Stephen in the Grampians N.P.

That ended our roadtrip. It was nice to come home (well, Tim and Stephen's home) and relax.

Kora playing with Bruce the wombat

We went into the city several more times before we had to leave. We even went to Tim's work where all the ladies ooohed and aaahed over Kora. I think Darren and I could have slipped out the door and come back several hours later and nobody would've noticed.

Kora and uncle Tim at the nursery in Treasury Park

Kora, mommy and uncle Tim waiting for the train at Southern Cross station

Lunch at St. Kilda

We had such a great time. Tim and Stephen were wonderful. I know Kora fell in love with her uncles.

Some of Kora's firsts while here:
She rolled over from tummy to back and back to tummy consecutively. She's very quick!
Her grabbing skills are really spot on. She wants it; she gets it.
Her, ah, output has changed.
First time on a plane, a train, a beach, a swing, and down a slide
First hike and first roadtrip
First time eating a veggie (I gave her a cooked carrot stick to gum...and she ate some of it, as we saw later on in her, ah, output)
First sporting event (we went to an Australian Football game)

For more pictures please go to Darren's MobileMe Gallery.

Home...finally

I will post pictures soon from our trip to Australia, but I wanted to share our trip home while it it fresh in my mind. We were so nervous about how it was going to go. We know Kora can only take so much stimulation before she melts down so our goal was to keep her as calm as possible.

First of all, we had to wake up at 3:30AM for our 6AM flight from Melbourne to Sydney. I was worried about how Kora would be since we had to wake her up (she can be cranky if she doesn't get her beauty sleep). She was awake during the car ride to the airport, and still awake during check-in and while waiting to board. She said her goodbye to Uncle Tim and pretty much fell asleep as soon as we got on the plane. Stayed asleep!

Sydney airport - had a long delay on this flight. I put Kora in the K'Tan wrap and walked around the terminal. Luckily she fell asleep without too much of a fight. Then...and this is really exciting...we were the first ones on the plane!! It pays to have an infant and 'need assistance'. Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool since that has never happened to me before. I wanted to go ahead and get on to get our things stowed and get her ready to be nursed to sleep again. I pulled her up and out of the wrap only to hit her head directly above me on the overhead bin. Whoops. Luckily, it is made of plastic (the bin, not her head) and it pretty much just surprised her. Sorry baby!

Sydney to LAX was a 14 1/2 hour flight. She slept here and there the first half of the flight, but she pretty much stayed asleep for the last 7 hours. Even though she was sleeping on me so I was a bit uncomfortable, it was nice to be able to relax and watch a movie.

Oh, we were in the bulkhead seats in the middle. There was a guy sitting next to us. Before we took off Darren said something like, "We'll do the best we can to keep her quiet." You know, just letting the guy know that we were not going to just let her get all wild during the flight. The guys says, no joke, "Oh, you got a muzzle?". Uh, what? Anyway, that guy went to sit in an empty row so at least we didn't have to sit next to Creepy Guy for that flight (he did end up joining us back for the last leg).

BTW, Kora is a huge flirt. She smiles at EVERYONE. Even if they are not looking at her. She just stares and smiles until they have no choice but to smile back. It's hilarious.

LAX - what a nightmare. We had to clear customs here so there was a lot of waiting. Waiting for checked baggage, waiting in the customs line, waiting to recheck luggage, and...and this was the worst...waiting in security. I'm not going to write out the agonizing details because to do so would get me riled up again. But just know that at one point we were standing - not moving - for over 20 minutes. Just standing there. While we waited for one family to go over and over again through the checkpoint. Kora was getting really restless. I finally made it through the checkpoint with her but Darren was stuck with our stuff on the scanner (including my shoes). I walked ahead (shoeless) to see if I could nurse her quickly to settle her. That's when I heard the announcement that our gate was doing final boarding. Ugh. I flagged Darren down so that he could gather our stuff quickly and we ran (me still shoeless) to the gate. We made it, and it turned out that several other passengers actually came even later and they held the plane.

LAX to ATL - this flight was just over 3 hours. At first Kora wouldn't stop smiling at people and of course they smiled and talked back to her which got her a bit riled up. Then she started getting fussy because she was tired. I put her in the wrap and rocked her for about 15 minutes. She finally calmed down so we sat down and nursed. She went to sleep (again!) and slept until about 30 minutes before landing. Bonus: I slept also! A passenger said the nicest thing as we were getting off the plane. He was smiling at her and then asked, "Do you even know how to cry?" Darren and I were thinking the same thing...oh buddy you have no idea.

Everything else went without a hitch. All of our luggage was on the carousel, Kora did great in the 8 minute car ride home. She and I took a long bubble bath (boy did she need a bath) until she pooped in the bath and we had to rinse us both off. Then we went to sleep (again!). All in all a decent trip home. We're glad it's over, and that we're home.