The flight back

We got back last night. I'm still suffering the after-effects. The journey on the whole was perhaps a bit better than the flight out, but it was a mixed bag.

The Good:

Anya is quite a different baby to who she was three weeks ago, and nowhere was it as obvious as on this flight. She's simply much better at entertaining herself and the episodes of crying were pretty brief. It turns out that crawling endlessly up aeroplane aisles, pulling yourself up next to sleeping passengers and then giggling in their unsuspecting ears etc is a pretty good way to wear yourself out. Between the exhaustion, I actually had quite a lot of fun, as I always do round Anya.

The Bad:

Another way in which she's changed utterly is that she has given up the swaddle and sleeps on her front now. Whereas you could normally get her down to sleep previously by drugging her with breastmilk and quietly slipping her into a cot/bassinet, now that just doesn't work. Her method of falling asleep now is to crawl around for a while, moaning disconsolately, pulling herself up on the bars of her cot, before collapsing in a heap with her favourite bunny clasped to her. That's fine but it just don't work in a 80cmx40cm bassinet. So every wink of sleep she got--and I don't think it amounted to more than about five hours out of 24 hours of travel--was on Kate's lap, an inch away from the milk supply. Which wasn't great for Kate's sleep.

The Ugly:

She had terrible jetlag last night. Screaming for hours on end, only stopping briefly when we gave her a feed, restarting as soon as the nipple left her mouth. Obviously, it was horrible to listen to.

The Cute

Where to start? At the worst moments she'd come through with a smile, a little chatter, one of her tender gentle little gestures or just some of the funny, odd behaviour that cracks up Kate and me and puffs us up with delight. After her morning nap today, she battened down ravenously on a feed; but, Kate told me, once she was done she determinedly fell back to sleep, sure it was the middle of the night though it was nearly midday.

I think she'll get better over the years, but she's already a pretty awesome travelling companion.