Well we are here in Canada! I wrote up a long post while I was in the airport during one of our layovers, but I don’t know if I’ll post it all. I think I’ll summarize. ;)

It was a very stressful day because we were very late getting to the airport and we ALMOST missed our flight. And by “almost” I mean the person behind us in line checking in didn’t get on it. Due to our being so rushed, and the lady at the counter apparently not seeing our bags (so she didn’t check them in with us), we had no time to fix it… she said, “Go! Run!! I’ll take care of these!” So basically we RAN to our gate and trusted her to get our bags properly checked in. And I spent all day freaking OUT that our baggage was NOT going to arrive in Vancouver. We had my camera, laptop, some books, and a lot of snacks as carry-ons… no clothes, none of my medications, none of the christmas gifts. They were all in the checked luggage. In Seattle I made the mistake of asking at a service counter to check if any bags were checked in under our names, and she looked and said, “No.” Cue freaking out and near crying for an hour and a half.

Our bags DID manage to get to Vancouver, just as they should have. I have never, ever been so damn happy to see my luggage come out on the conveyor belt, I swear I nearly started shrieking with joy.

The kiddo enjoyed the flight, or so it seemed. Before we took off on the first flight I looked at Den and said, “It’s the baby’s first flight!” :D And then he kicked all through takeoff and landing, then settled down peacefully once we were in the air.

The flights were okay to me – certainly not as bad as I had feared. My legs are held up okay, though my right knee was having some issues by the end, and my right ankle (why just the right??). What was bothering me, however, was my tail bone. Ouchie ouch. The foam on those seats is not NEARLY adequate enough. I spent one flight sitting on my folded-up winter coat to help take some pressure off my tailbone and onto my buttcheeks. It only helped to a point. I could only stay leaning back in my chair for so long, then I had to shift forward and put my head against the chair in front of me (or rest my chin on my hands), just to shift things around. I’m not really sure I’d want to travel any later in pregnancy, though.

I had to pee a lot though – at least a lot or me. (As I said afterwards, I peed as much as Den normally was, which is very unusual for me!) Before we got on a plane, pee. After we got off the plane, pee. Eat, pee. Repeat. At one point we were hurrying to our gate and I swear I could hear things sloshing around in there with every step. Not pleasant!

The other problem I had I was thankfully prepared for: dry hands. Oh boy do my poor hands take a beating when I travel. I packed a couple tubes of lotion and I used them frequently, just trying to keep some moisture in my skin. That happens every time I fly though, so it’s not a “new” pregnancy thing.

Being here with my family is so great. My parents still live in the house I was brought up in, so it was interesting to walk through the neighborhood with my mom. “That house didn’t look like that last time!” “Those people still live there?” It’s really quite calming to come back here. Everything is so familiar. Being in my parents’ house again… I guess most people don’t get to walk through their house saying things like, “Oh, remember when my childhood cat ripped this wallpaper? You still haven’t repaired it!” “Oh here’s that carpet that I spilled hot chocolate on…” It’s different, sure… they’ve moved some artwork around, redecorated for Christmas in a slightly different style than I’m used to (my mom’s taste has apparently evolved quite a bit! Much more sophisticated than it once was!) but so much is the same.

Things aren’t perfect, though… unfortunately a lot of our family talks have been about one of the dogs, the one who was recently diagnosed with bone cancer. The family has a very tough decision to either let it progress and euthanise her when it gets bad enough, or to amputate the leg and hope it extends her life. The dog is okay for now, but certainly not in the best shape. The tumor is huge now, she has no use of one leg at all. It’s painful to watch her hobble around. Definitely a major bummer this Christmas. Not something we ever, ever want to have to deal with. Our family pets are… well, family.

I’ve spent time all day with my family… sitting and talking with my dad about his trains… talking with mom about Christmas plans and the baby… talking with my brother about his life. It’s so great. I miss this SO much, living in the U.S. I love just laying down on my brother’s bed while he surfs the internet and hearing him tell me all about how his friend is an idiot and that girl did this, and so-and-so wanted to do that. (My brother is 22… and we are very close. I realized that I need to get into the habit of calling him more often, just to chat.) My dad even pulled out a catalog from one of his train companies (he’s a model train hobbiest) and showed me the whole Thomas the Train line of Lionel trains that he said he may just have to get for Devin, “Even though the kid might not be into that sort of thing.” lol

There are so many things I’m still just learning about my family… and every time I come home I realize how much more I miss them all. I mean I’m sitting in the living room just mentioning baby stuff to my dad, and he says totally out of the blue, “Use those natural cloth diapers. They’re so much better for the environment, and they’re not all that hard. No crap going in the landfills.” I was rather speechless. I knew my mom used cloth on us, but I had never ever heard my dad mention them, much less in a positive light. I guess I had just sort of falsely assumed that mom had wanted to, and dad has shrugged and gone along with it. And here he’s talking about landfills? I realized just then… THIS is where I get my earthy-crunchy side. In MA I feel like a bit of a big huge black sheep, in Den’s family I’m really the odd one out on so many things. I guess I never really thought of my own family as very earthy-crunchy at all. I never thought about it, period. Now the reality is staring me in the face: I am not nearly as much the rebel as I thought I was. Yes, I was a bit headstrong (haha) and I certainly have my own, very strong opinions about things and I did butt heads with my mom and dad a lot. But here I realize that who I am is in LARGE part due to how I was raised. Things like cloth diapers and breastfeeding was never promoted to me, not at all. They were never even mentioned until I got pregnant! But the whole mentality of doing what’s natural… I guess I was kind of infused with it.

Tomorrow morning we are getting up early to go shopping while the stores are still quiet. We have to finish our Christmas shopping here in Canada, didn’t want to buy everything in the U.S. and have to pack it all! (Only some things.) So I guess for now I had better get some sleep. :)