Tales of Li'l Foot

This past weekend, Li’l Foot and I accompanied my mom (Li’l Foot’s grandma) down to my sister’s house in Alabama. We had an awesome time. Li’l Foot met her SouthernAunt and 2 more of her cousins (Boo (almost 10) and Beaner (12)) for the first time.

Saturday morning I woke up to my alarm sounding…what was playing on the radio? “I Will Survive”! Once we were packed up and ready to go, we jumped in the car and were off to pick up grandma. What was playing on the radio in the car when we turned the car on? “Paint Me a Birmingham”!

Li’l Foot’s first airplane experience was a good one. We flew into Atlanta and so as to help her with equalizing the cabin pressure, I breastfed her at precisely the moment we started to taxi for take off. She promptly fell asleep during take off but I continued to tickle under her chin so she would continue to suck. That nap was short lived. She woke up only 20 minutes into it, perhaps because I tried to adjust her on my lap or because she subconsciously knew the little 8 month old boy Caleb in the seats in front of us had woken up and she wanted to play with him. She was then up for about another 1/2 hour and was standing on the tray table making flirty noises and gestures to Caleb. They were pretty equally shaped…little pudges!!!

At some point she gave in and knocked out. She slept through me getting up and getting off the plane and slept almost until it was time to board the next plane to Birmingham. She was awake for that whole flight and did just fine, including a quick poopy diaper change towards the end, which thank God didn’t smell too foul. We were fortunate that there was a really nice airline employee at the gate who noticed there were three of us and instead of cramming us into 2 seats next to each other, he told us to sit in whatever row it was because there were 3 seats next to each other. God Bless him!!! That was the best flight…ever!!!

I have to admit I was worried about the whole breastfeeding thing on the plane being that there have been numerous recent stories of women being thrown off the planes because they were breastfeeding their child. I was pretty discrete though, I think. Li’l Foot controlled the slurping and I made sure I was sufficiently covered up so as not to flash anyone.

We arrived in the middle of a stupid heat wave in Alabama. It was disgusting. Just the thought of going outside caused sweat to pour out of my body at an alarming rate. Sweat would puddle under my legs on the car seat. The back of my shirt was drenched with sweat when I got out of the car. It was gross, and I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do that to themselves. Ick! But I endured, and so did Li’l Foot. I think she woke up out of her naps prematurely due to the sweat building up under her thin layer of hair and under her clothes. Poor little thing.

We arrived at my sister’s house. I sent my mom in to the house to see the family first. My sister and her husband were the only ones who knew I was coming. My nieces were not apprised of that information. They were surprised and it was so worth it to keep our visit a secret from them when I saw their faces and especially when they wrapped their arms around me and gave me a ginormous hug. They both automatically took to Li’l Foot. It was instant love!!! It was really cute to have Boo ask me every few minutes or so if she could hold Li’l Foot. It was clear they hit it off from the very beginning, as made evident by the fact that there were times when I tried to hold Li’l Foot and she didn’t want me, she wanted her cousin Boo!!!

Li’l Foot really enjoyed the pool out in their back yard. We went in the pool each afternoon at the point in the day that it was still hot but not too hot. Li’l Foot LOVED the pool!!! She has a new best friend, it’s called the POOL!!! See…watch…(sideways..sorry! I’ll have to remember that for next time!)

And if you click on my Flickr link, you will see oodles of pictures taken this weekend.

One of the big things we did this weekend was get Li’l Foot’s ears pierced. I know, she’s young, but whatever, it’s really cute and she barely noticed. I mean, yeah, she squawked at it when it was done, but she was totally fine with it like .5 seconds later. I couldn’t see her face, but grandma said she gave her this look as if to say, “What the heck did I do and why did I just get hurt!” I should note that if you look at those pictures on Flickr, you can’t see both earrings at once because Li’l Foot’s cheeks are so pudgy. I should also tell you that the whole reason for going to Claire’s in the first place was to get Li’l Foot’s cousin Boo’s ears pierced. In their house you have to be 10 in order to get your ears pierced and well Boo turns 10 this October. We didn’t tell her what we wanted to do until we got to the store and when we did tell her what we wanted to do, she told us she couldn’t because “mommy would get mad that she wasn’t there”. Aaaaawwwww!!!! She’s so cute. So, we called my sister to clear it with her first, and she said it was fine, and then it turned into Boo not even wanting to do it. We must’ve been in that store for an hour or so while getting Li’l Foot’s ears done. And then we left.

We had lunch.

We went into other stores.

And then we headed home. And Boo’s ears still were not pierced. Oh well!

And then we got stuck on the wrong side of a railroad crossing and couldn’t go around because there is no going around. (We sat for about 15 minutes, and if my sister sees this entry she’ll tell you she’s sat at the train crossing for a 1/2 hour before (so I’ll just steal her thunder now)…I say that in the way you heard your parents tell you they had to walk to school up hill both ways kind of tone!) Anyway out of the back seat we hear Boo say, “Grandma, you know, I was going to tell you that I would get my ears pierced but then we left the store.” To which I turned around and said, Boo, if we go back right now, because I’m sick of sitting her waiting for this train to move, you promise you’ll get your ears pierced. It’s a 15 minute ride and I’m not going allllll the way back there for you to back out of this. She agreed, yes she would definitely do it, she promised. And then I threw in the clincher. I said, “if we go back there, and you don’t go through with this you won’t be allowed to hold Li’l Foot or touch her for the remaining time of our visit here, ok?” And she also agreed to that. And before she had a chance to change her mind, I was out of the train crossing waiting line and back on the road, sights set on Claire’s.

On the way there, Li’l Foot fell asleep, so when we got there, I stayed behind to let Li’l Foot sleep. They had paperwork and stuff to fill out anyway. By the time Li’l Foot woke up and we got in the store, they had just finished putting the marker dots on her ears. And as you could tell was going to happen, the second the earring gizmo thing got poised and ready, Boo started to second guess her decision and wanted out of the chair. Well we weren’t having any of that. Grandma threw up a body block to keep Boo from getting off the chair and I covered the side of the chair. We had her cornered and crying!!! Woops!!! The Claire’s employee told her that the earring packages were already open so grandma would be paying for them either way. After much back and forth, we prevailed and she agreed through some tears to get it done. Another Claire’s employee came over and they simultaneously pierced both ears so that they didn’t have to do one and have her back out of the second one…mwa…hahaha!!!

I know we’re evil, but whatever, I was able to tell Boo that she would forever be able to recount the story to Li’l Foot and tell Li’l Foot that they are ear piercing buddies because they got their ears pierced on the same day. When we returned home, Boo told me, “Aunt Li’l Foot’s Mommy, do you know why I didn’t back out of getting my ears done? Because when I was sitting there I remembered what you said about not being able to hold or touch Li’l Foot for the rest of your visit!!!” Double Mwa..ha ha ha!!! I am a good aunt…no?

I may have also convinced her early on in the day that although mommy was not going to be able to get her the ear piercings for her birthday and mommy wasn’t going to be able to get the Nintendo game thing (both of which grandma had now taken care of), mommy would now have to come up with something equally cool (instead of ear piercing) for a 10th birthday present for her!!! Sorry Sis!!! Get on that!!!

On Monday the kids had school, so mom and I went gallivanting. When the kids returned home, I could hear the school bus at the top of the hill, and then from inside, with the central air blowing I heard Boo yelling Li’l Foot’s name!!! “Li’l Foooooooooooot I’m cooooooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiiiing. And you could hear as the wordds streamed out of her mouth you could here the fluctuation in her voice as her feet pounded down the hill fluttering her voice box. It was really cute.

The trip home was interesting. We faired fine. I was worried about traveling by myself with Li’l Foot. For no reason, but that is was something I had not done before and was sure she’d be teething and screaming on the plane. Which she wasn’t and didn’t. She was an angel most of the time. I would have to say the worst part of the trip was the flight from Charlotte to Hartford. I was an idiot at the Birmingham airport yesterday morning and changed my seat to the last row because the row was wide open and I didn’t think it would fill up. But…alas…it did fill up!!! And that last row…DOESN’T RECLINE. And the row in front of us…DID RECLINE!!! Which left Li’l Foot and me…NO ROOM!!! We had approximately .2 inches of room to be exact!!! But who was measuring!!! And oh yeah that last row…doesn’t get any air flow!!! So besides being cramped in a tiny space in a window seat with two guys in the other two seats int he row, I was sweating my ass off. It’s a darn good thing my seat cushion could be used as a flotation device because if I was on that plane any longer my sweat alone would’ve flooded it and we would’ve had to use the seat cushion as a flotation device to save our sweaty butts. When we had just landed the guy sitting in front of us…you know the one with all the room? Yeah, him…well he turned around and said, “it looks tight back there, why didn’t you say something, I would’ve put my seat up sooner!” Yeah…thanks…knuckle head.

Perhaps the best part was when I broke all sorts of traffic school rules. I made my way through the airport, to the baggage claim belt and as luck would have it, the car seat was right there on the revolving belt. I scooped it up, made my way to the car and was on the road…only to hit t.r.a.f.f.i.c!!! Ugh!!! I did the lawful thing for the first 15 minutes. I sat there in 4 lanes of 5 MPH traffic. And then I had had it. And I knew if I sat in that traffic, Li’l Foot would not last the rest of the trip home. So I made a conscious and unlawful decision to cross the yellow and white lines over to the HOV lane. And then we were cruisin’, that is until we made it into Hartford and then everything was slow. But I would’ve been another hour into Hartford if I hadn’t broken the law when I did. So…pfffft!!! I didn’t get caught so it didn’t happen. Double pfffffft!!!!

So, I’d have to say, the best part of yesterday was arriving home. Hubbie was outside in a flash when we pulled in the driveway. he gave us huge hugs and kisses and we even had a family hug. I felt the love. Even the dog got excited when I walked in the door. Yippee…oh boy oh boy oh boy…mommy’s home…oh boy oh boy oh boy!!! And he proceeds to act like a big doofy dog, but I feel loved and that’s great.