Mini-Me's first Christmas

We traveled across the country with Mini-Me, and it wasn't that bad. I recommend getting an aisle seat near the back - the plane will be emptier at the back, and there is better access to flight attendants and bathrooms. The changing table in the airplane beats any I've seen in a restaurant so far. (I'd like to start a review website, similar to Yelp.com, that focuses just on the baby-friendliness of restaurants. In general I've been positively surprised by the attitudes of waitstaff and negatively surprised by the condition/lack of changing space in the restrooms.)

Mini-Me was having a bad reflux day when we left for our red-eye flight, so she'd already spit up on one outfit and two bibs before we even got to the airport. She arrived at my parents' house at 6 AM, cheerful but soggy and sour-smelling. My mother plopped her right in the kitchen sink for the first of many baths that week. (My mother seemed a little obsessed with the baby being clean; my father confirms she was this neurotic with me and my sister too.) So the baby finished up the week very clean but a little chapped.

It was interesting watching Mini-Me train my parents over the course of the week. My father emerged as the more intuitive soother of the pair of them, and my mother took some cues from me and from him so that by the end of the week, they were both great with Mini-Me in awake mode and overtired mode. My mother was especially good at eliciting talking and cooing. Toward the end of the week, my husband and I left the baby with them and went out for dinner just the two of us, which hadn't happened since Mini-Me was born. We had fun, but I was distracted and anxious about how things were going at home, so we only stayed out a few hours. We were all grateful to be back home in our usual routine after a week away, but Mini-Me was a champ with all the schlepping around and in all the flight wasn't that much harder than pre-baby.