Joe and Nick's Excellent Adventure

We're back from New York, and if you couldn't tell by the post's title, things went off without a hitch.  We had a great visit with Grandma Alice, Grandpa Richard, Uncle Patrick, and Great-Grandma Claire (plus a few neighbors who were itching to meet the Most Popular Little Boy in the World).  We spent most of the time at the house just hanging out and playing, but Nicholas seemed to enjoy himself immensely.

Here he is, for example, demonstrating to Grandpa Richard how to properly eat your fingers to soothe teething pains:

From Nicholas - Month 6

And he's gotten really good about letting anyone feed him (Grandma's not just anyone, but still):

From Nicholas - Month 6

[N.B.: More photos in the Peanut Gallery, as always.]

For this trip I had worried most about two parts: Nicholas being separated from Mommy, and sleeping in a strange place.  Now, he'd already done one overnight mommy-separation successfully way back in August, so I wasn't too surprised about his handling that part with aplomb.  And for the most part, even at home he doesn't get too clingy with Sarah, or notice that she's not around, or mind eating a bottle.  Unless of course, if she walks by when I'm in charge, and then all hell breaks loose.  But with Sarah safely ensconced in Tennessee, that last was an unlikely occurrence.

As for sleep, the last time we traveled with him (at the end of August), he had a lot of trouble adjusting to the new sleep patterns, being in a different bed, and so on.  So we tried to prepare him a little bit by having him take a few naps in the last week in his pack n' play in our bedroom—a different location, a different bed.  And boy did it pay dividends.  Plus it helped that he decided to be incredibly agreeable.  We arrived at about 11pm on Thursday night, and I set him down—still in his car seat—on the floor in "his" bedroom (it's currently a shrine to Uncle Brian) and went to quickly warm up some milk.  He sat very patiently, and beamed a huge (mostly) toothless grin when I came to get him.  I fed him, and he went out easily and quickly for five hours. [Ed. note: Yes!]  The first night, I had to share a room with him, since Sarah's parents had also come up, and took the other bedroom.  This caused a problem when I fed him at 4am, because I apparently got back to the room too quickly, that is, before he'd gone back to sleep.  In our efforts to adjust him to a new bed, we forgot to adjust him to the idea of sharing a room, which he hasn't done (except for our Louisville trip) since he was about four weeks old.  He screamed for nearly an hour, and I finally got him to sleep by picking him up to comfort him, putting him back in the crib, and then stepping outside and sitting by the door to wait for him to fall asleep.

Needless to say, I switched bedrooms the second night.

Other than that one little hitch, he was fantastic.  He slept the same amount as he usually does, ate with the same frequency, and threw in at least one five-hour stretch each night.  In other words, Sarah was envious.  Even more importantly, this trip gives us added confidence that he'll be good for our upcoming travel extravaganza, involving another trip to New York, a Christmas jaunt to Louisville, and an early January trip to San Diego.