Christmas

Last Saturday we headed down to New Orleans for Christmas. The airport was absolutely crazy (and I usually fly a lot, and this was crazy even for crazy days), and for once, it was a good thing our flight was delayed, or we would have missed it. I believe I have mentioned before how ridiculously one's luggage volume grows with the inclusion of things for Baby. Needless to say, thank God for the overpriced carts you can rent to haul the carseat, the bags, the diaper bag, the laptop, and whatever else you decide you can't live without for 5 days. Anyway, the flight was delayed 2 hours...then we sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes...then we finally got airborne and Gillian-for all the potential circumstances gave her for a good old fashioned meltdown-nursed to sleep and stayed asleep (and stayed latched, with her two top teeth etching permanent toothmarks into my delicate flesh-but far be it from me to excavate the teeth, much less even breathe hard, in a mighty effort to keep her sleeping) for about an hour and fifteen minutes. She awoke like a cheerful little sunrise, and was just thrilled to have our undivided attention for an hour (the remainder of the flight). These days she's totally into lounging back and looking through books with people, and playing with her stuffed animals.

We arrived to a ghost town of an airport in New Orleans, and after watching the luggage carousel for about a half an hour so hopefully, it became clear that our bags weren't there. But, here's the silver lining-the carseat WAS there! At least they lost the right stuff instead of the thing that would cause us to have a moral quandry about how to get to our destination in the rental car. Anyhoo, the bags were coming in on the flight from Chicago that was arriving a few hours after ours, and they promised to deliver it that day to our doorstep. No worries. Then we went to the car rental place. As we waited for the shuttle, it occurred to me that it was humid and warm out. Nice. When we got to the car rental place, we waited for 45 minutes to be helped. With a baby, who, for whatever reason, was in fine spirits. Laughing, and smiling at everybody, and playing a game that involved trying to catch and trying to throw her stuffed dog. It is still a mystery why not one of the five other employees who were standing around volunteered to help us (while the one employee flirted with the guy in front of us for 45 minutes). Then I remembered how I so enjoy the service sector down south, and gave silent thanks that I don't have to deal with it more often.

We arrived at Aunt Mimi and Uncle Dave's 8.5 hours after we left our house that morning. I reckoned that was about twice as long as it should have taken. We got G down for a nap upon our arrival, and she slept a couple of hours. The bags were delivered at 11:45 pm, and all was good in the world.

Our stay down south was wonderful...every day started with a laid back morning drinking tea and hanging out with the O'Leary clan (Sean's dad's sister's family...99% of our family in New Orleans is his mother's family, but Mimi has lived there since college). We ate too much. We drank too much (not in one sitting, but still...). We saw the remarkable transformation of Sean's dad Bill into Santa Claus to deliver gifts to the great-grandchildren on Christmas eve. Gillian got a "Mary Jane" doll that is super special-she is the third generation in the family to receive them (all the girls have one handmade). Suzi's was made by her grandmother; Kim (Sean's sister) has one made by Adee (her grandmother); and now Gillian has one made by her grandmother. It is such a sweet idea, and Suzi says the pattern is in tatters, but still does the trick. Gillian pretty much kissed her all night. She held her own in the insanity of all the other kids, and was undaunted by the yelling, laughing, rough housing, and general chaos around her.

At Audoban park, we saw real live ducks that looked just like the ones on Gillian's treasured shoes, who she quacked at as if she was the Duck Whisperer as they gathered around her to eat the bread she had. I am pretty sure I have never seen her that excited in her entire life (think feet going, hyperventilating, hysterical arm waving while yelling "CACK-CACK-CACK-CACK" like a crazy person).




Grandaddy treated G to some Roman Candy Man taffy (which she wasn't sure what to think of). Of course, we couldn't leave without a Cafe au Lait and beignets from Cafe Du Monde and 30 lbs of crawfish (which cost us roughly 1/3 per pound what we would pay here). The crawfish purchase officially means we are back on for the 5th annual Mardi Gras celebration at Chez Colledge. Hope you all will come!

It was restful and most excellent trip. It was funny to see how excited Gillian was to see all her familiar things when we got home. In spite of my best intentions, I did NOT work on my thesis while down south for Christmas in spite of the fact that I promised the pre-defense draft to my Committee members by the 28th. That means that Thursday night (a work night) I was up till 3:30 in the morning finishing up my references for each chapter...and 2 hours later, got up to go to work. I didn't know I was capable of pulling an all-nighter anymore, but I guess you can make yourself do just about anything if you have no other choice. In Friday's blizzard, I delivered 5 pristine copies to my advisor to distribute to the committee...so, now I am sooooooooooooo close. I just need to remember one thing over then next 11 days: BREATHE.