Good to be home

Ok so to end our trip to tennessee monday night Kenny and Angela (ben's step brother and sister in law) came over for dinner and Mary ellen made a fabulous lasagna, salad, and garlic bread! All my favorite weaknesses! We had a great time visiting and Kenny and Angela played with Aiden. This was also their first time meeting him. Aiden is kind of going through a new thing where he is not so sure about strangers. He used to just go to anyone and now he is just a bit more timid. Kenny and Angela were troopers though, they got down on the floor and played with him, built him things to knock over, all his favorite games! Monday night we also got to experience the candy-licious wonderfulness that is mountain wine. Let me explain....where ben's parents live is a dry county but people on the mountain "make their own wine" and so we travelled to none other than the Sparta dump to find the man who makes this really wonderful sweet wine. It tastes more like candy than wine! I have to say though I wish he would bottle it and sell it in stores because it is awesome! Ben and I brought some home with us! Here are some pictures of Kenny and Angela with Aiden.

So I decided (after much thought and changing my mind about 10 times) to stick it out and try to drive home with Ben. I have never taken aiden on a plane by myself and especially not since he has been SOOO busy. The last time he flew was to Padre last summer and he was not even 4 months old. I was very nervous about trying to keep him entertained and happy sitting on my lap for a 2-3 hour flight. He does NOT sit in anyone's lap for any amount of time so I knew it would be a battle and I could just see myself being that crazy lady on the plane who would break down and start crying and Aiden would be freaking out. I told Ben that I thought he should fly with aiden because ben tends to be more calm in tense situations (I know it's shocking!) but he didn't want to do that so in the end we decided to just try and make it through the trek home all together. We went out and bought triaminic night time to try and drug aiden into sleeping. It even said on the label "noted drowsiness will occur". The first dose we gave him right before leaving seemed to work. He got still and napped for about an hour and then it was incredible amounts of energy. Another 3 hours (when it was safe to do so) we gave him another dose....no effect and we tried again after 3 hours more...no effect! Aiden developed immunity to triaminic after the first dosage! We got to little rock before he was freaking out again and the trip home looked much like the trip there. He never did nap again. He had to be taken out of his seat, allowed to play in the floorboard, sit in our lap's etc. So all in all I would say we definitely win some kind of bad parent's award. Not only did we try to drug our child but also allowed him to be incredibly unsafe in the car! Anyways after what seemed like a VERY long 11 and a half hours we were finally home! It was 7:30 when we arrived home tuesday night and aiden went to bed at 8pm and we never heard a peep out of him. I took a much needed shower and fell asleep at 9:30 on the couch and I think ben stayed up to watch the mavs game but I don't know. We were all so mentally and physically exhausted! Aiden slept until 10:15 on wednesday morning and when he woke up he was just the happiest little boy. I don't think I have ever seen him be just so very happy, he would run around our living room hugging pillows off our couch and just laugh at me. It was very obvious the little boy was happy to be back in his familiar surroundings. I put him down for a nap yesterday and did not hear a peep out of him but when I went to check on him an hour later he was just sitting up in his crib playing and laughing. He finally fell asleep but I think he just wanted some time in HIS bed! Now we have all recovered, unpacked, and gotten back to normal. It was a GREAT trip but I don't think we will be trying that drive again for a little while. I put aiden in the car yesterday afternoon to go to the grocery store and he immediately started FREAKING OUT and thrashing his arms and legs so I couldn't buckle him. It was like NO NO don't do this to me again!! Poor baby. This is just a little video of Aiden playing peek a boo with Ben alst night. He thinks he is hiding when he is underneath the chair! Sorry the quality is not great, our mac is in the shop so I am having to do everything on the laptop.