going west

We left Russia early in the morning on April 2nd, after only 4 hours of sleep that night. My mom helped watch Elijah the evening before while we packed and then came to the airport with us in the morning. Elijah was so tired that he fell asleep in my arms before we ever boarded the plane to Paris. Interestingly enough, there was no such thing as pre-boarding for passengers with young children. Nice. Elijah slept through the whole flight and only woke up when we took him out of his seat in Paris.

We had a 4 hour lay over, which stretched to almost 8 hours. Fortunately, there was plenty of space for Elijah to run around in addition to a small play area for kids his age. He didn't get most of the puzzles there, but it did occupy him for a little bit. The rest of the time we took turns chasing him as he explored the "Alcohol and Tobacco" stand and ran around signs in circles. Having gold fish crackers along was also very helpful.

He took another nap at the airport, which is unheard of in our normal life. He doesn't easily go to sleep in unfamiliar places, even if they are dark and quiet. So to fall asleep in the middle of a noisy airport could only mean one thing: the child was completely exhausted from the previous week.

Our plane was overbooked as it was spring break time in Europe. They asked for volunteers to give up their seats, and we heard that there were people trying to leave Paris stuck their since the previous Thursday. There was not a single empty seat on our plane going to Chicago. And, it turned out there was not such thing as pre-boarding in Paris either.

Once on the plane, we sat on the ground for a while. Elijah fell asleep again. After about 45 minutes or so the plane sped up ready to take off. We were about to leave the ground when the breaks came on and we were all gald to have had our seat belts on. Another plane crossed the runway as we were speeding along it. It's a scary thought, but we were all probably pretty close to dying. After this we had to refuel, the airplane had to be checked, and we had to wait for the wheels to cool down. All in all, it took over an hour before we were finally on our way to Chicago. Elijah slept through it all, and so did I for the most part.

He woke up soon after we took off and stayed awake for about 4 hours (half the trip). Through most of that time he wanted to entertain himself by pushing against the seat in front of him with his feet. Knowing how annoying it is for the person in front of him, we tried to keep him from doing it. But the only way to stop him was to rub his feet and legs. So there we were, each rubbing a foot for almost 4 hours. That was the worst part of the trip. As soon as Elijah fell asleep again, we promptly turned on our TV's, thinking that he'd only sleep for a couple of hours like he did on the way to Russia. But he slept the rest of the trip. We watched Stranger Than Fiction, and enjoyed it tremendously. Ryan even watched it twice. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.