Easy Peasy

"Doesn't that baby ever cry?" asked a man on the shuttle from the airport to the hotel.
"No, not really," CC said.

Sure, Carter cries when he wakes up at night, or if he wakes up from a nap a bit disoriented... but otherwise, he really is just a happy baby. We took him with us to Wisconsin which meant leaving the house at 5:30 Wednesday morning. Try as I wanted to keep his schedule somewhat like it is here, it just didn't happen. He eat at the wrong times, slept at the wrong times, and didn't poop for three days. Still, he was as happy and cheerful as he ever was. He only cried 3 times: once at Ella's Animatronic Deli he got a little overstimulated and cried about 40 seconds, cried in the plane heading to DFW for about 20 seconds because I couldn't feed him quickly enough, and once on the plane to El Paso when he woke up from a nap. (I don't count crying in the hotel room when he wakes up in the morning... I only count crying when other people can see it!). We took him with us to the conference, and CC and I only missed 2 sessions each. I could make it to the first 2/3 of any session, but then Carter would get too happy and make gurgling, humming or laughing noises, and I felt he was distracting so I left. CC was able to strike up lots of conversations with colleagues thanks to the bundle of joy.

On the way home, we were delayed in the airport for 4 hours... no prob. Carter is a champ.

Incidentally, Alex stayed in Las Cruces with Grams and Granddad... reports are that he was equally amenable, and only had a breakdown when -- for some unexplained reason -- didn't want to eat at the Applebee's in Alamogordo. After Grams had a talk with him in the car, he changed his attitude and did great.

Carter was so happy every time he heard Alex' voice on the phone when we called each night. We'd put our cell on speaker phone so we could both talk to Alex and Carter would just stare at the phone, getting a big grin each time Alex would talk. Once we were home, Carter seemed that he couldn't take his eyes off his big brother. Alex was so adorable... we brought him a cheese hat from Wisconsin, and he just ran to us when we got home... couldn't have been better!