Really busy

I'm so behind on pictures and life stories about Jordan. We got back into town yesterday morning at 3am after spending a long weekend with my Aunt. She's been battling cancer and we were able to get into town in between chemo treatments. My Aunt is amazing and it was SO great to be with her while she felt pretty good. Miss Jordan was awesome. She dealt with the horrible travel schedule, danced around and sang. She fell in love with my Aunt and Uncle's dog and their friend's dog who was visiting for the weekend.

I'm exhausted and I haven't gotten to updating all of the pictures and stories about Jordan.

Let's say this: She LOVES planes. She's so excited about "flying in the sky." She had to brag about it to everyone at school yesterday. She also had to show off a new pair of shoes we bought at the Disney Store. I have allowed my daughter to totally buy into the Disney mystique. I'm totally okay with it. My husband wants to shoot me. I've never been a princess type, but if my daughter likes it, I'll play. (I can't believe I just wrote that since I swore my daughter would never wear pink and we'd avoid all gender-assigning games and toys)

Oh! And Jordan was dry the entire trip. She even went potty on the plane! Incredible!

I promise to write more, but I'm working late tonight and I want to enjoy a nice day outside and read a book for a little while. It's one of the first times I've been alone in a long time. It's also really nice out and I don't want to miss sitting under a tree for a little while!

Day 4: A New Arm and Exhaustion

I'm in the Dallas Airport right now... Jordan is running around in a kids' play area. She's the littlest one here, but she doesn't seem to mind.

We had Jordan's new prosthetic for about two hours before we needed to head to the airport. Occupational therapy wasn't extraordinarily helpful since Jordan was spent from all of her hard work yesterday. But we got some great tips and the therapist typed up a bunch of tips and ideas on ways to get Jordan using two "hands." The big bummer was during therapy we got a little bit of pink marker on Jordan's new glove on her prosthetic. So the hand is already dirty! I'm pretty bummed about that. Hopefully it will wear down and won't be as noticeable.

Before we left, one of our former students/reporters came by to interview Jordan and I and the folks who worked with my girl. He's working on a story about her and Pediatric Prosthetics Inc. for KTRH - a commercial news radio station in Houston. He even ran to the airport to catch some sound with us there.

So we've survived the first flight -- it wasn't much fun. The girl is EXHAUSTED and she wanted more freedom during the flight. But I hope running around at the Dallas airport will help her take a great nap

***UPDATE****
We're home... We're exhausted. Jordan was fantastic on the second flight. When we were getting close to landing, I started rocking her a little and humming a song. She grabbed her baby, wrapped her baby with the blanket that is now named "Night Night" and started rocking the baby and singing the baby song: "Baby, baby, baby, baby." When the song was over (and it was 2 minutes long), Jordan started clapping and saying "yay!!" Apparently she was very proud of her song.

She slept in the car once I pulled over and placed "Night Night" on her appropriately. She was screaming her blanket's name until I had to pull over and fix it. Geez, this girl knows what she wants.

I'll post a little bit of video of Jordan's therapy tomorrow. I'm fried from all of the travel and driving.

What happened to my peaceful traveler?

My poor baby girl. When we started out on this great trip. See that picture, that's how our trip started out.

Today's trip home didn't go as well. It was kind of sad. Her eye teeth have put her in a pretty sour mood. In our first flight she was okay until we had to put the iPhone away right before we landed. She threw a huge fit and didn't really calm down until I started singing a lullaby.

The lullaby kind of worked in the second flight, but we went from the first plane, to the bathroom and then to another plane. There was no time to cool off from the previous flight. So I gave her tooth medicine, motrin and a bunch of lullabies. In the end, the only thing that calmed her on that flight was cuddles and a good dose of free Sesame Street downloads on the iPhone.

In the bus ride to our parked car, Jordan once again freaked. This time it was because she was sick and tired of sitting on my lap. The only thing that helped: Dora vodcasts. We watched the four or five on my iPhone constantly. The guy sitting next to me said: "Aren't you glad you're an early adapter?" I was... And so were all the other folks in the van. It was a funny moment.

Getting ready for travel

Jordan and I have many trips in the next few weeks. Tuesday we're heading off to spend time with my aunt and uncle. The big goal: Hand out lots and lots of hugs and smiles.

After that, we're home for a little more than a week before our next trip: Building a new version of Jordan's prosthetic. Jordan's arm has grown at least an inch in the last year and the sensor that triggers her "hand" to open and close is really inconsistent. We (Jordan's therapists and I) are pretty darn sure that if we could have a consistent trigger, we could get her to open and close that hand by choice. Jordan is a pretty bright kid.

So that's exciting... And exhausting. I'm trying to think of interesting ways to hold her attention and excitement while she sits on my lap. These are probably the last trips we can take with her on my lap -- 2 year olds must be in their own seat. Books work pretty well these days. Elmo is king in her world. So that probably means we'll read Elmo books. She also loves dancing. LOVES dancing. But dancing in our seat will probably be annoying to our seat mates. I'd love some ideas. We haven't been on a plane in almost a year since we started driving crazy amount of miles for mega-trips to Florida and the Northeast.