Winter Wunderbar

D's first birthday was last Sunday. We had a blast. She loved opening presents & playing with her new toys. She seemed a bit baffled by her cake, though. I had to stick her hands in it & she immediately pulled them out & held them up for Grammy to wipe off. So dainty. She seemed to rather like demolishing the cake with her spoon. All in all, it was a fun time.

Fall semester has concluded with me passing all of my classes. I even got an A in one of them. Pretty freakin' great, if you ask me. Since I don't have to retake one of Fall semester's classes, I'm on track for completing my mortuary science degree in Summer 2013. That's just 2 more semesters folks. I'm so anxious to get home to Alaska, I may just skip the entire graduation ceremony in favor of packing up my family & boogieing back to the Last Frontier. I'm sure my family will talk me into flying back for it though.

We are going home for the holidays however. We leave in 11 days & we are woefully unprepared. I've been pouring over ever book & article I can get my hands on. Reading blog posts from other traveling mamas. Doing gobs of research on airline policies. Coming up with plans & then contingency plans by the bucketful. I still feel like it'll be a complete catastrophe.

Two layovers, one comfortably long & one very, very short. I'm really hoping D sleeps a good portion of the long flight & is her usual curious self at the airports. We've done two roadtrips this year & she's done remarkably well. My relatives often joke that she must not be a real baby because she hardly ever complains.

I'm blessed, really. But I spend an awful lot of time waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is supposed to be harder, isn't it? She's a year old now & we haven't had one midnight run to the ER, she sleeps soundly through the night 99% of the time, & tantrums are very few & far between. I feel bad for feeling bad that we don't suffer like so many other new parents. Yeah, I'm confused by that too.