The trip so far...Part 1: The Flight

I thought I'd fill you in on the trip so far whilst Leah conducts her nap strike upstairs (one of the lows). We left sunny SF on Thursday 3rd Sept after a long couple of weeks for me desperately trying to roll out phase 1 of my project before my holiday so that I could say I achieved something this year. As we pulled off the 101 I realised we'd forgotten the stroller giving Paul and me approx 90 seconds of 'do we turn around, do we manage without' discussion before we'd pass the terminal. We decided on a middle ground which was to check in and then send Paul back to Kylie's house to pick up their stroller since it would be 30 mins off the round trip.

After that hurdle we settled into life on the plane, after offering a very nice man our two seats for his one we got to sit in the much sought after bassinet position and by 8.30 Leah was cozied up in her bassinet and fast asleep.
We congratulated ourselves, ate dinner (me about 20 minutes before Paul - vegetarians always get their meals first but the 'wine with your meal' usually comes about 45 minutes later), and settled in to watch The Hangover. At 10pm Leah was awake, after a bit of grizzling, following by shouting, followed by screaming she resorted to the killer smile + 'hiya' which always signals the end of nap time. Since the little boy in the bassinet next to her was starting to stir we took her out and she immediately starting running laps around the plane. We played with her in the galley. We took her down to the toilets to show her the not very interesting view outside. We took her into the toilets to play with the paper cup dispenser. We ran many laps around our section of the plane with Leah practically high-fiving people as she passed. We then started operating in shifts so that each adult could get some rest while little miss Ever Ready just kept on running. Four hours later she gave in and went back to sleep. We spent the rest of the flight watching nervously as the seatbelt signs flashed on and off, worried that we'd have to get her out of her bassinet and hold she who cannot be restrained. She managed another 2 hours and then woke up again, this time going straight for the 'hiya' as Paul and I tried to hide underneath her table in a vain attempt to avoid eye contact. A few more laps of the plane and many many 'the wheels on the bus's later we had touched down in Blighty.

Total plane journey time: 9.5 hours
Leah's total sleep: 3.5 hours
Ruth's total sleep: 20 mins
Paul's total sleep: 10 mins