Zahra made her first ever road trip this past weekend. The family went down to Atlanta for a visit to grandma and grandpa's house. We learned a lot from this trip.
One of those little nuggets is that Z does not currently enjoy long car rides. What normally takes us 3 and a half hours of driving time from Asheville to Alpharetta took six. We stopped several times because Z was howling back there like her legs were being sawed off. Funny thing was, every time we stopped, as soon as Z was taken out of the car, she quit screaming. Out of the three of us, Shannon had it the worst. She was not happy at all with the screaming. She was slowly losing her mind. The stress got to all of us. By the time we reached Alrry and Elaine's house, we were a family mess. The next few day we made a trip to Ikea that nearly drove me nuts. Of course the girls were enjoying every inch of the enormous facility. On our last day, we had the Raitt family come for a visit. My boy Travis and his family are good friends of ours and they have a crew (two wonderful boys) of their own. Z enjoyed her time with Erin, Travis' wife, and immediately made a new friend.
One of the major happenings that Z experienced over the weekend was that of solid foods. She had her first bowl of cereal and loved it! Now we had already experimented with avocados and seen her enjoy that. The cereal was an instant hit. Now my mom can be happy and quit complaining that we are starving the child.
We have also started giving Z more naked time. She, like many other little ones, enjoys being naked. She seems more at ease without the clothing so a little break from the clothes on a daily basis keeps her happy.
As we prepared to return today, Shannon and I were concerned about Z's behavior in the car. We left early in the morning since that is her best time of day. The thinking here was that she is fussy in the late afternoon and evening (which was the time of day on our trip to Atlanta) so if we left early, she'd be fine. We were half right. She had a good beginning to the trip and slept most of the way. Then she woke up about half way to Asheville and let us have it for about forty minutes of non stop crying before passing out. We'd never really let Z "cry it out" before and she definitely let us have it on this trip. Shannon is feeling negative about the possibilities of our summer trip down to Florida. I'm optimistic she will travel better when she is a little older. Hopefully she will figure out the car is a good place to be. She is normally pretty good on short trips here in no-trafficville. Guess we'll wait and see.
Z already misses her grandma and grandpa! We do to! We had a great time in Atlanta and ca't wait to get back.
