Unconditional Love

Jaxson playing Peek-a-Boo!

Well, I totally failed at my statement from my last post regarding my next post being from the great white north.  Little did I know that we’d be way too busy and way too tired to do any writing whatsoever.   In fact, it’s now Tuesday and I’m still delirious so if I’m all over the place I apologize in advance!   I do have to say that I gained a whole new respect for mothers during this trip.  I always figured motherhood, especially motherhood with an infant, would be difficult, but my heck…I had NO IDEA it would be that difficult and tiring…and I was only playing Super Aunt!  With the exception of Friday night – actually Saturday morning – I’d guess I got maybe a total of 8 hours of sleep the whole trip.  Yawn!  

First, I have to comment that for traveling 1,450 miles in four days with an 11 month old, random blizzards and no sleep, our trip went pretty dang good!  Jaxson was a complete trooper on the road and I’m impressed he is even still letting his mom and dad put him back in a carseat.  That is one exceptional kid!!  Gotta love him!

I’ll start from the beginning.  I arrived in Lincoln, NE at 11:20 p.m. to a blanket of fog and super cold weather.  Besides a few very strange people in the airport [Austin: the large-college-professor-looking-man who decided to sit RIGHT next to me even though there were at least 62 empty seats around us; and Minneapolis: the woman in her late 30’s showing us all that she knew how to do head-stands in the middle of the walkway], the flight went well.   After visiting and helping Holly finish packing, we probably went to bed a little after 2:00 a.m. which started our trip of sleepless nights.

Holly & Jaxson at lunch!

Bright and early Tuesday morning and after a quick stop by McDonald’s for some major-needed caffeine, we were on the road by 8:45 a.m.   Not bad!   We made it all the way to North Platte before stopping for some lunch which somehow took an ungodly 2 ½ hours at Applebee’s – I don’t know what their problem was, but it did give Jaxson plenty of out-of-carseat time and we snagged a fun red balloon! 

The rest of the trip to Cheyenne, Wyoming (our first real destination) was pretty uneventful except for when Holly decided it was unsafe for me to face backwards, kneeling from the front seat to attend to Jaxson and keep him company.  Instead she suggested I lean the seat all the way back and then climb over which I gleefully listened to and dutifully obeyed without any hesitation.   It was going very well… until I got STUCK!  And, I mean, REALLY STUCK!   Once I made it over the seat, I couldn’t reach the little lever to raise the seat back up, and hence, I rode a good 30 minutes or so like this….

In my defense, it sounded like a reasonable idea and I was operating on very little sleep.   Besides my legs falling asleep and me having very little mobility to even attend to Jaxson, it really wasn’t all that bad.  I was able to put my seat belt on so all-in-all it had to be safer than kneeling from the front seat, right?   Of course ignoring the fact that we were laughing so hard we were crying and Holly kept trying to take pictures of me because every time she turned around she couldn’t help but start laughing again!  Lesson #1:  Do NOT listen to a mother with an infant who is operating on very little sleep while I am also operating on very little sleep.  

We finally made it to Cheyenne where Holly had her first visit and Jaxson and I went to Barnes and Noble for some well-deserved out-of-carseat time!  From there we headed to Laramie where we hit our first bad weather driving over the pass, but luckily we made it safely and spent the next two nights (read: very long nights spent almost completely awake) in Laramie. 

From that night on, I can truly say that I learned the true meaning of unconditional love this trip.   Unconditional love is when you can be so tired and so frustrated (specifically at all hours of the night), yet one little smile from the most adorable little man can make you forget all your misery in an instant.   Poor Jaxson had an ear infection and virus our whole trip and he was totally out of his element and so he didn’t sleep very well….and thus, we didn’t sleep very well either.  But considering all of that, he was somehow amazingly cheery most of the time and we really enjoyed our time together. 

In Laramie, we got to visit with a couple of Holly’s friends, hang out with Uncle Austin and his girlfriend, Emily, got birthday cake to celebrate Holly’s birthday and Jaxson’s upcoming birthday, and got very creative trying to keep Jaxson entertained.   Lesson #2:  Sometimes the simplest things in life (a.k.a. “a basket”) can bring the most joy to both the little basket-passenger and the basket-driver! 

 

From Laramie, we headed to Gillette for another night – this trip was a little more stressful due to weather, but we made it.  We spent another sleepless night in Gillette, visiting with more friends and trying to teach Jaxson how to walk before heading back to Lincoln.  We decided to leave for Lincoln around 3:00 in the afternoon and drive all night assuming we wouldn’t get any sleep that night anyway and at least if we were back in Lincoln by the morning that Holly’s husband, Tony, could take over and let us sleep a bit!   

Of coure it snowed that day so we had questionable roads most of the way through Wyoming; we had to stop 3 times in the first couple of hours for diaper changes; ate the worst Subway known to man; hit a random blizzard outside of Sidney and almost pulled over, but the snow stopped as fast as it came so we pushed on; and Jaxson refused to sleep and had had enough of his carseat.  That was a LONG trip!  I’m pretty sure we watched Finding Nemo three times,  A Bug’s Life twice and I can’t even tell you how many times we listened to the 2-Disc, 50-Song Nursery Rhyme CD.  About that CD - the good news: I now know nursery rhymes so when I have babies someday I will be able to sing something other than “Amazing Grace” to them…which apparently is the only song I knew before this trip!  The bad news: I am now singing “Down by the Bay” and “Short’nin Bread” in my sleep – no lie. 

For your listening pleasure:

Down by the Bay:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIlMyNXmfcM

Short’nin Bread:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v5rsEa9vUI

Jaxson (finally) sleeping and cuddling his frog and monkey!  So adorable!

Saturday morning was heaven for me.  We got in about 3:15 a.m. and I was in bed by 3:40 and stayed there until 11:45 Saturday morning…it felt so good!  The rest of Saturday was great – we went to Tony’s basketball game which they won and Jaxson was the life of the party!

Sunday morning, I got my last Jaxson-loving in before flying out that afternoon.  He is seriously the cutest little baby and I just enjoy him so much.    Even with the lack of sleep this trip, I wouldn’t have changed anything for the world – I cherish every moment I get to spend with him!  His little smile, little laugh and little personality make everything 100% worth it.   Lesson #3:  Unconditional Love!!   

Such a cutie! 

Jaxson & Daddy doing push-ups!

His little laugh was to die for!

Do you think he will fit in my suitcase???

One last thing I learned this trip – when concentrating really hard on something Jaxson sticks his little tongue out the whole time…just like his mommy!   Lesson #4:  There is nothing more precious than seeing how a child takes after his/her parents – even with the littlest things!

Jaxson concentrating very hard on walking; Mommy concentrating very hard on fishing!  Love this! 

To finish it off, I just want to say thank you to Holly for inviting me on this trip!  I'm so grateful for the time we spent together and for being able to hang out with Jaxson.  I truly love every minute I get with him.  Thank you!!!  Love you both!