I’m told I’ve been to Hawaii 5 times, so this is Hawaii #5.

Our day started at 11pm on Day -1, because it affected the rest of the day. Neither of us really managed to get very much sleep, so much so that we were quizzing each other in bed at 11 about things that had or hadn’t made it into the suitcases we’d spent all day packing. Sleep did not come easy.

5:30 was the planned wake-up time, but I made the mistake of using the washroom at 4am and dozed until 5am when I couldn’t stand being in bed and awake anymore. Miranda followed me shortly after. Ava slept.

We did a little last minute packing, stuffed some electronics and toiletries and pills into suitcases, weighed the suitcases and panicked over how to get each suitcase less than 50lbs and ended up packing another backpack. I ate and took a shower (neither of which Miranda wanted to do), while Miranda fed Ava and then we got a cab to YVR.

YVR was a breeze. When you have a happy baby sitting on your back, people want to help you. They just look into her darling blue eyes and wide, open, smile and they open gates and fail to check the weight of the suitcases you so carefully managed. (we were annoyed we could have fit more into each!!). M and I have Nexus, but we’d totally forgotten to get Ava hers, so we were worried about jumping into the Nexus line at the airport. No problem though — they have a special Family line up for security.

We sat down at the gate, lay out a mat and played and read and waited.

The airplane was on time and our flight attendants were superb. WestJet continues to hire the best!

Ava had no troubles ascending, and went from happy, to super loud and cranky to asleep within minutes. It was a little eerie, actually – one second she’s pissed as hell, and the next second she’s silent. We used a phone camera on selfie mode to check her eyes, and passed out. I was carrying her in the Tula, so I was careful about breathing for the next hour.

She woke, happy and alert. We played and she made faces and charmed all our neighbours. No one said anything, but I worry that they might have changed their mind before the end of the flight. This nap cycle was not good. At this point, she’d been woken up 2 hours early, been awake for 3 hours (usually only 1.5), slept for 1 (usually 1.5) and then was awake for 3 more hours and just couldn’t get comfortable. She wailed really badly for somewhere near 10 minutes and we couldn’t figure out how to sooth her. This was really draining on both of us, but eventually Miranda found something that worked and Ava allowed it to work, and suddenly Miranda had a locked-out elbow with a baby lying in it. Not comfortable at all for her. >.< We slowly re-positioned until it worked for both.

About 20 minutes later, Ava woke up and vomited about 100-130ml of formula all over Miranda, and a little on me. We were stunned. She just woke up and became a waterfall.

For context, Ava doesn’t vomit. Sometimes she’ll spit up a bit, but really no more liquid than you’d find if you spat into the sink (don’t spit anywhere else, that’s gross). So this really was a weird situation for us. First flight, first time emptying her stomach contents onto one of us. We grabbed the barf bag, dumped some of it in there, stripped her clothing, tried to wipe us down and she was so ridiculously happy. Like, so happy. And naked.

Miranda had so much on her that she couldn’t get clean, and our area smelled like stomach acid and formula for the rest of the flight. Mixed in sometimes with farts, since she did that a lot too.

So happy.

We’d read that descending in an airplane was the worst for babies, because, well, you know. I had a plan to counter act this, and whether it was necessary or not, I’m happy to report that descending was fine. I had a 180ml of formula for Ava. Whenever my ears started to feel pressure, I would give her 10-20 sucks on the bottle, then clear my own ears. Rinse and repeat until you’re on the ground. She didn’t cry – neither about the ears, nor the fact that I kept taking her bottle away.

Landed in Honolulu. Miranda waited for the bags while I got on a shuttle to get our rental car. I didn’t truly know how I was going to get back to the airport, but I figured I’d figure it out. The shuttle driver asks “car seat — where’s the baby?!”. He’s this loud and blustery black dude. Pretty stereotyped, I’m sure you can imagine him. I said she was back with my wife, and he asked if I knew how to get back? It was only after that I realized that this mans profession was literally “getting back to the airport from the car rental place” (and vice versa). He said “it’s simple — right right left right” and I memorized that, with absolutely no context. 5 minutes later he calls me to the front of the packed bus and shows me what he means, and it all falls into place.

I had no troubles picking up the car, did my right right left right, found Ava and Miranda at the curbside happily. Apparently there was an issue in while I was gone whereby our hiking backpack wasn’t with them, and the conveyor had stopped.

We quickly got on the highway and drove to Mililani, a good sized town in the middle of Oahu. We had planned to stop at Walmart for a few essential items to get us going — diapers, wipes, bread, eggs, bacon, a papaya, etc. Ava hadn’t slept since she had woken from puking at this point, about 3 hours.

3 hours is usually how long we have her awake before she goes to sleep. We think (without proof) that the secret to our happy child is that she gets a good amount of sleep, and since we really like our happy child, we’re pretty obsessed with making sure she sleeps. 3 hours and we’re at Walmart and she’s showing no signs.

At almost 4 hours we leave Walmart, still not sleeping.

We get to our apartment at something like 4.5 hours and she’s mercifully asleep. Except now we have a sleeping baby and have to lug our shit upstairs …and her? Heck no. I sit in the car for 15 minutes rather than waking her up. I don’t want to look up the numbers, but at this point she’s slept for something like 7 hours, where she usually has more like 11-13 hours.

The apartment is lovely. It’s nearly everything you want from a Hawaii apartment (no dishwasher). We sit Ava down and put some toys around her and start unpacking and…we hear a scream from the living room. She’s sitting up in the middle of it, and it seems that we can’t leave her alone anymore. This is a thing we can do at home. Sometimes in rare occasions she’ll be looking right at you, with intention, and if you leave her eye sight while keeping eye contact, she’ll cry and be mollified when you come back. This was every time we tried to leave.

But, at least when we were with her, she was super happy. So I sit and play, or sit on the deck and look at the water.

Time for bed finally. Miranda goes to put her down as usual, we have a little routine. About 10 minutes in, Miranda calls out my name and asks me to take over. It seems that Ava had been crying in the dark room when Miranda would even walk away from the crib, while still being in the room. I try to sooth Ava, and don’t succeed.

It’s been a long day of unknown behavior from our happy kid, and this is pretty rough to deal with. We talk it out, because that’s what Miranda and I are really good at, and we come up with a plan. Who knows if the plan will work, but any plan is better than no plan!

<grrrrr>

I wrote a bunch then published it then WordPress decided to get me to login again and then deleted everything after this. It wasn’t a lot, but it’s gone and grr.

It’s 10:44 Vancouver time and I’m pretty wired.

I have only 2 photos for you. My camera phone is terrible. Miranda was going to send me some photos from her awesome camera phone, but I think she probably lay down in bed and passed out before they got out. Ah well, tomorrow!

We were hoping she would sleep in the airport, because it was about time. At the same time, we would probably have needed to wake her up to get on the plane anyway, so it’s probably just as well.

Me sitting in the car at the end of the day waiting for her to wake up.

Later!