The long-awaited update
I have not been a good blogger lately, but I have plenty of good excuses. We left on Thursday the 18th for Hazel’s first big trip to visit her Grammy and Grampy, and Aunt and Uncle (and cousin!) in Kansas. She did great on the plane trip to Kansas- everything went just about as smoothly as possible. We got to Kansas and Hazel experienced another first: snow! There was some on the ground when we landed and it snowed again the day before Christmas.
We had so much fun on our trip- we got to visit with Aunt Joanna, Uncle Matt and Cousin Peter who graciously shuttled us to and from the airport and hosted us all for Christmas. After Christmas we headed down to Wichita to visit with Great Grammy and Grampy, where we also got to see Great Aunt Pam and Uncle Bill and Eric and Mike. It was so good to get back to Kansas- Jered and I hadn’t been back since last July. After 11 days we headed home and while we were sad to leave family behind we were happy to get back home. I think we underestimated how important routine is for Hazel. She did extraordinarily will considering how much was going on over the holidays- but she did struggle, and so did we. Christmas Eve we had to let her cry it out. I hated every minute of it, but it worked. It felt so counterintuitive to just let her cry, but it was all we could do. The night before we were up every hour with her, and we were just too exhausted to do that over again. Letting her cry it out was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Thankfully, Joanna took me on a drive while Jered stayed back to endure the crying- without that drive I would have been climbing the walls! After that night things were much easier (thank goodness!).
Now that we’re home Hazel is back into a routine- she has been a bit under the weather, but is starting to feel better now. Just today she started to move forward very quickly in what seems to be the next intermediary step towards truly crawling. We captured this on video and I plan to post this and a few other videos from our trip later this evening. Tomorrow we are going over to Omi’s house for Christmas round two. We haven’t yet exchanged gifts with my mom and brother and are very excited to give Omi her Christmas surprise. Look for more photos from Christmas Round II later this weekend!
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