Socialising!

Forgive me for not posting for a few weeks, but Julia had a very busy month! She took her first (4) plane rides to Canada! This is just a short post on how she did and how the trip affected our sweet 5-month old.

We weren't sure how the plane ride would go. We had read that Julia should nurse on ascent and descent to help with her ears popping. Other than that, we were pretty clueless about what was to come. How would you expect a baby to handle 2 flights with a long layover? Well, Julia did fantastic! The only brief moment of hysteria was before our initial take off in Glasgow when Julia decided she was ravenously hungry just as we got on the plane. Because she got upset so quickly, she wasn't too keen on latching on. The pressure was on. No time to get the feeding cover out, so the gentleman next to me had to deal with me whipping my boob out in front of him whilst Julia was kicking him in the arm during the meltdown. Thankfully, he was very understanding and if he was embarrassed by the impromptu exposures, he didn't show it. Then the flight attendant came over (mid-meltdown) and tried to instruct us on how to use the infant seatbelt. After we got Julia settled, she was very happy to be flying!

Our longest flight was from Heathrow to Toronto. Julia promptly fell asleep after take off and slept almost the whole way! She woke up about an hour and a half before landing.

Julia handled jet lag well. Because there were so many new faces when we landed, she managed to stay up to 8pm local time (1am her time). She woke up on the first morning at 4am, but went back to sleep pretty easily. After that, you would have never known that Julia had just switched time zones!

The rest of the visit was amazing. Julia went everywhere and anywhere easily and always had a smile on her face. I was talking to my mom tonight about the effect of the trip on Julia and here on my thoughts:

1. Because we introduced Julia to so many new faces and so many people held/played with her, she has started to show her personality to new faces a lot faster.

2. Because of the same thing above, she seem to be a lot more aware of her surroundings. For the last few days she has been making a lot more of an effort to observe/reach for things around her.

3. Because we spent several nights at different houses, the kid can officially sleep anywhere. I was really impressed with how easily she slept in new environments.

We went away to Canada with a 4-month old baby and came back with a 5-month little lady who is ever-changing. Happy 5 months, my girl!