Penelope Takes Flight

We survived our first two flights as a family with a baby. Penelope was a little angel for the first flight. She was sound asleep during takeoff, didn't cry once, and fed during landing. The Gold Coast was fun with friends, although there were times we had to trade off watching her. She is very social most of the time and enjoys being around and meeting new people. Penelope was doted on in the spirit circles after a few of Michael's games, and she ate it up. 

Penelope also gave us a brief scare when she was sleeping in a tent next to us, and a freak gust of wind was strong enough to blow the tent over, tumbling her inside. She woke up a little startled, but the ordeal seemed to bother me more than it bothered her, and she settled quickly. It just goes to show you how careful you have to be and how quick something can happen. We thought she was perfectly safe in the tent right next to us, and we thought it had been weighted down properly considering it was breezy and not very windy. She currently weighs about 5 kilos, which is still not very much. Lesson learned. 

During the flight back, Pen was less of an angel. She had woken up early and not gotten a solid nap - just ten minutes here and ten minutes there - so she was definitely more fussy and cried a few times. We were those people with the crying baby, at least until Michael took her during landing and finally got her to sleep. Luckily, she wasn't the only crying baby, so at least we could share the blame. Anyway, what can you do? If you have a baby, and you go places, occasionally she is going to cry. Other people just have to deal. For longer flights, we might do something nice like give the people around us candy and earplugs, or something like that. At least she is cute most of the time, so maybe that makes up for it somewhat, at least for the people who get to see her when she's cooing and smiling. 

A slow exodus has begun. We have six friends who will be moving from the Sydney area in the next few months, and the first has left. It's kind of a bummer, but I think this just kind of cyclically happens every few years when you live in a big city. People come and people go. We are very happy for our friends to be moving on to new adventures, and in a year to a year and a half, we will also be moving on. I like to think of it like at least we will have friends living in different interesting places to visit around the world. It will become an excuse to travel, as if we needed any more excuses. There is no doubt in my mind we will meet up in other cities to do fun things, like ski or hike or play in more frisbee tournaments. It will be trickier in the next few years now that we have a little munchkin to tote around too, but if you make friends and travel a priority, a getaway here or there is doable. Now that we have Pen's first flight under our belt, there will be more to come.