1st Day Home

We got home with Isabelle at 2 am this morning, after spending more than 17 1/2 hours traveling or waiting in airports. Isabelle was really great, I was proud and amazed. I could see both times when we got on the plane and sat down in first class that all the people around us got that wary look you get when you've paid a lot for something and now expect you get to hear a baby screaming through it. And she can scream, oh my goodness. Robert says she's breaking glass somewhere when she screams and named her "Screech" on our second visit. Everyone at Casa Bella new her scream and when Terry was on the phone with her husband, if he couldn't hear Isabelle even though Terry was a floor away, he'd ask if Isabelle was okay. Normally her voice filled the house. But, not on the plane or in the airports. She slept some (I had given her a small dose of baby Tylonol for each flight so her ears wouldn't hurt when the cabin pressure changed) and smiled at the air servers and bounced on Dad's lap some.

Isabelle is making the transition better than I am. Today I found myself really missing Antigua and the people there. I got so used to the rhythm of our days when I was there that it felt odd not to get up and got for pastry, go for a long walk in the busy town in the afternoon, bargain at the market, hold Isabelle while many people we passed told me how pretty she was and that she was cold. It felt odd not to see Alba or Angelo or Ishmael or the Mayan women in the Parque Central who talked to me when I wouldn't buy things from them, or the man in "Pollo Asado" who sits in a chair all day and talks to the people who come in while his daughter fills their order of roasted chicken, or the men with one leg gone begging on the street or the hustle of the buses and their destination callers. Hillsboro feels silent and dull and unpopulated compared to Antigua and the people seem distant and not friendly with babies. We went to lunch at "Red Peppers" today so I could practice my Spanish, and I found I was really missing hearing Spanish and talking to people in it. I want to start taking lessons again here and practicing as soon as we get settled in, before the Spanish I learned starts to fade.

Isabelle loves Isbre and Tesla. She stares at them whenever she sees them. Tesla is unsure about Isabelle, but has calmed down since he figured out she can't move around much. Isbre is starting to warm up to her now that she realizes she gets to eat what Isabelle drops. Isabelle doesn't, of course, understand petting an animal so we're working on that. Or, at least not pulling out handfulls of hair.