Coming back from vacation is never easy.  Enzo, however, did great on his first real trip, and we couldn’t be happier about that.  Granted, I think a week of vacation is probably all the little man can handle before his schedule gets messed up and he gets cranky.  We’re struggling a little bit getting him back into his routine, but it was well worth it, and I’m sure things will be back to normal soon.

We’ve definitely learned a few things when it comes to travel, like Enzo does best with morning flights rather than late flights.  I could see the worried faces of our fellow travelers when we showed up with our multiple bags and baby, and I admit it made me nervous, and it also made me irritated when Enzo would smile at people and they only frowned back at him.  If a baby smiles at you – smile back!  Sheesh.  Anyhoo, the first flight he made friends with another passenger in our row and handled takeoff fantastically and then proceeded to nap.  When we landed, despite having way too many gate check bags and carry on bags, Enzo sat in his sling hanging off of me like a monkey and was great.  We got on the next plane where he proceeded to fall asleep and didn’t wake up until we arrived in Durango.

We had a wonderful time hanging out with family and getting to see a few friends and, of course,the colors changing.

We drove up to Silverton, which is actually really not stroller friendly… don’t take one as it’s worthless and more pain than it’s worth.  Enzo, however, isn’t always a fan of carriers so we make do.

Now, we often get stopped so people can see Enzo, but I can’t even tell you how many people pointed at him and wanted to see his smile as soon as we put the hat on and carried him around.  This boy is a people magnet. :p

He does have his limits, though, and decided we would not be taking pictures in front of the train.

The trip was short, but long overdue.  Two years?  Ridiculous! A week, and even an hour time change can be a lot for a little boy, though.  Our flight home also had a rough start with a delay of at least half an hour – I think it was more.  While waiting in line, Enzo had a massive blowout and I had minimal wipes on me, and the bathroom was out of paper towels, of course.  We managed, but all I had in his diaper bag were jammies I was going to put him in later, so he proceeded to get overheated and cranky while we waited and waited and then went through security and then I was finally able to change him into something cooler from the carry on. At this point he was hungry and it was past time for his bottle, but patiently he waited.  It’s a miracle we even made our next flight – they held it for us and a couple other people who luckily didn’t have a baby and a ton of stuff to drag with them.  They almost lost our car seat, but surprisingly did not.  Enzo slept on the flight from Denver to Minneapolis, but did NOT wake up happy.  There was a lot of crying as I tried to comfort him as best as I could, but he was not happy and was tired and hungry.  As soon as we got off the plane he perked up, and decided it was not time to sleep despite it being 11:00 pm.  Now we’ve just been trying to get him back on schedule, which has been hard. The past two nights we’ve had a little trouble settling him down despite the fact that he’s obviously tired.  Tonight instead of eating he just wanted to jump… and jump, and jump.

Oh how I love the little stinker.

Oh yeah, and I’m 30 now, which is… odd in a way.  I don’t feel like I’m thirty years old, yet in so many ways I’ve definitely grown up and changed in the past however many years.  Who knew life could be so crazy and wonderful despite the ups and downs and in-between.  I think I can safely say my greatest accomplishment so far is my Enzo. Cliche, perhaps, but so very true.  I haven’t done a lot with myself, and may have had great plans at one point, but for now I’ll consider life a success if I can manage to be a good mom and make sure that our kids grow up to be kind and generous and look back with fondness at the time we’ve spent together.