In summary.

EMBRACE ALL OF THIS, WORLD.

She is basically making this face the entire time Papa pushes her on the swing.

And I am never, ever taking this skirt off. Ever.

See? (Also, whisk whisk whisk.)

She was just bent on taking those stairs by herself.

Here, Bogey. You may have a toy. I am learning sharing.

Uncles are for magic carpet rides.

Silence, while I serenade.

Oh look, Gigi, you can park here. (This was the first time I've ever been able to use 'with small child' parking and the parking lot was PACKED. It was triumphant.)

Yes, I will take this bear.

Would you like a muffin, Lady Mary? Sorry, Lady Edith, I don't have enough for you.

Papa was using his phone as a mirror to show her where the yogurt was. She is bad at mirrors (the yogurt was on the other side).

This is right after she misjudged a hand-hold and fell down ALL those stairs. My child.

Don't do it, E.

The height of boldness: gently patting Rufus' tail while he sits there like the placid beast he is.

She used this rake to make 'mashed potatoes' out of her grandparents' carpet for HOURS.

We visited Gigi at work and it was THRILLING for everyone involved.

You hide, Uncle Dar-Dar.

Peek.

Girlfriend will get in your shoes.

And she will make you help.

Continuing our streak of someone getting sick, Eleanor came down with a cold the morning we left. Which is fine, because she ALSO continued her streak of never sleeping in public unless she is sick.

Such a good face, that face.

Who doesn't love a good lie-down?

So many reasons to lie down.

Lying down because fairy princess.

Lying down because relaxing with cousin.

Lying down and refusing to take off ballerina skirt.

Lying down because wrapped in fur blanket.

Lying down because indoor stargazing (or something).

Lying down because still at airport, and so, so tired.

Lying down because home again at last.

She's not picky about who she cuddles with, either.

I'll cuddle you.

Oh, and I'll cuddle you.

Sure, I'll cuddle you again!

And you.

And you.

Oooh, group cuddles!

She's basically made of books.

Eleanor's super power is duping people into reading with her.

She's crazy good at it.

She will get you on the couch or the big red chair and you are THERE FOR A WHILE, and she doesn't even have to get down to get the next book because she has learned to say Dat one?

Dat Are You My Mother one?

Dat purple one?

Dat one de hippo?

We were at my girlfriend's house and her husband came home and Eleanor was all *strange man, bashful* but then he was like, Oh, did you want me to read you one of those books? And then she was like

So now you know. It is both her super power and her kryptonite.

As long as no one gets sick in the next twenty-four hours, we'll be alright.

We fly home tomorrow morning. I don't even know where to BEGIN, so I'm basically just going to lob a couple of photo-heavy posts at you. Brace yourselves.

Fighting exhaustion with cousins and fish.

I was mad about missing my flight because it cost me a day with my family, but I was also mad because instead of rolling in at nap time and smoothly transitioning across two time zones, we got in at midnight and I thought Eleanor might sleep in the next morning, because I am an idiot who knows nothing about children. She was up at 5:30 (7:30 our time) and also disoriented and confused so obviously I had to get her instead of letting her murmel herself back to sleep. 

I also thought she'd nap for a long time because I am an eternal optimist, but nay. So when we went to see Joel's family, I told them not to take anything she did personally because she was a fragile, emotional creature.

BUT. It was like when your shy friend gets a little bit drunk and starts chatting with boys instead of sipping ice tea in the corner. It helped to have a cuzzie.

Dat is a Hazel.

And SO MANY RELATIVES around to soothe the beast.

There was a lot of tickling

and bed-jumping

and cackling.

See how drunk she is?

We went to the aquarium, which I think helped stave off Eleanor's exhaustion-rage. You can't stop Eleanor counting things if you tried.

One, two, sree, four, fibe, six, seben…lossa jellyfish!

One, two, sree…TWENTY PENGUINS!

One fish, two fish, one fish, NEW FISH!

My sister's mother-in-law once told me that I would be so proud of my kids I could barf. Watching Eleanor troop through the aquarium with cheer and good manners, knowing how tired she was and how squidgy she is around unfamiliar people and new situations, I wanted to somehow inject into her brain a sense of how proud of her I was.

Cousins in space!

This whole trip so far, with all of its set-backs, she's been friendly and patient, pleasant and fun. I like my little beluga a lot.

Your oatmeal with raisins, in particular, looks suspicious.

The royal taster, at her duties.

None of us have yet been poisoned.

But she'd better check again, to be safe.

And with one thing and another, we made it over.

We are home for a visit. We SHOULD have been home Monday morning, but in an episode I am too angry to talk about, Comfort Cabs failed to send the cab that I had reserved twelve hours in advance to pick us up at 5:45, but they KEPT TELLING ME that it would be there any minute, so that by the time I called another cab company, it was too late and we missed our flight.

Our re-scheduled flight was for Monday evening, and I'd be even madder about the whole situation if Eleanor wasn't doing such a bang-up job of being a person. Her nap on Monday came super early (because we got up at 5) so she was already tired by the time we left for the airport at 3, and then we had two one-hour flights with a three-hour layover in between. We didn't get in until midnight, our time.

Das our plane! Das a tractor. Dat is a bobcat.

But she was a delightful trooper, charging around the airport charming people and scamming extra cookies from the flight attendants.

I packed her backpack with treasures, and my purse with snacks.

The hardest moment came early in the layover when she suddenly wanted to go home, or get on the plane, or SOMETHING THAT WASN'T HAPPENING WHY WAS NOTHING HAPPENING? Poor you, I said. Let's go find some food.

It was well after her bedtime by this point, and we still had almost two hours in the airport plus another flight PLUS the drive home. I tucked her up and turned a movie on for her and thought she might sleep, but Eleanor is not a Sleeping While Fun Things Might Be Happening kind of baby.

Lucky for me, then, that she is the Good-Tempered In Rough Times kind.

Okay? Okay.

You become a parent, you do some weird stuff. This is why I try not to stank-eye other moms, because we're all doing the things we think are important, regardless of how nutty they look. You think it matters to breastfeed your kid til he's four? You do you. I don't like to tell my kid she's okay when she's fallen and hurt herself.

Which is what we do, right? A kid falls, we're like, You're ok! You're fine. Because we think it's reassuring. But then I had Eleanor and now I'm like, Wait. This is just going to give her a bizarre and erroneous idea of what 'okay' means. 'Okay' means my knee hurts. 'Fine' means I'm super angry about something.

So we don't tell her she's okay. She falls, and we're like, Ooop, you fell. You hurt your knee. Give it a rub. If she cries, we're like, Do you need a kiss? Do you need a cuddle? Because your head hurts. Because you bonked it.

The OTHER reason we don't tell her she's okay is because we want her to feel her feelings, and to understand them, and to understand that WE understand them (this is where I start to feel a little Attachment Parenty). Because now that she knows what 'okay' and 'fine' mean, if she's hurt or upset and I'm like, You're fine, it makes her MORE UPSET. Because I'm trying to minimize what is, for her, a legitimate emotion.

And it's working out remarkably well. Eleanor hurts herself almost constantly, and she's usually just like, Oh! Hurt the thigh! Mama kiss it? (She once asked me to kiss her tongue, because she bit it, because she bites her tongue more than any person who has ever lived. I didn't kiss it. Should I have? It seemed weird.) If she cries, you ask her what happened, and once she can articulate it she usually calms down. Usually it's in some backwards English scramble like Hurt de fingers de hurt an blocks hurt fingers. But you get the idea.

It's a narrow road between thinking too hard about your parenting and not giving it enough thought at all. Mostly I'm just doing what my parents did, what my friends do, what I fell into the habit of doing when I worked in child care. This is a thing that I do even though it feels, you know, just slightly like Overconcerned Parenting. But my kid is turning out (mostly) okay, so I'mma keep it up.