Holiday Breakdown

We had a great Easter. There is so much to write about, I don't know where to begin. The airplane ride would be a good one, I suppose.
We arrived at the airport early, hoping to avoid any check-in lines. But, behold, very long lines that I waited in with Shepherd dead asleep on my chest. After checking our bags, I went to go through security, and behold! more long lines!! So I waited... and waited some more. Until I finally got to the front of my line. "You've been flagged," the security screener told me. "Soo... that means?????" I replied. "You must go stand over in that line over there," and with that, he circled something on my ticket with huge red ink... Me.... a security threat to our nation. With a 2 month old strapped to my chest. *sigh*
Turns out, there were several of us with babies in the "flagged" line. I had to remove Shepherd from his sling, which woke him up, then walk through the most ridiculous contraption. You stand there, and it blows air on you from your head to your toes. Shepherd almost freaked out, and just looked at me like, "What the heck are they doing, mommy?" After going through security, and since Shepherd was awake, he decided that it was lunch time! Here I was, in the middle of a cramped airport, full of people, with no where to go to be private. So, I just decided that my son's hunger trumped everyones comfort, so I whipped out the boob and fed him, there amongst hundreds of waiting passengers. Thankfully, no one stoned me, but I did get some horrified looks from the old lady two rows across from me. She had saggy boobs anyways, so whatever, I don't care. After I fed him, he promptly fell back asleep. He slept the entire way to the plane, and through takeoff, the flight, and landing. No screaming child here!! *Whew*
We got to Raleigh, and mom and dad met us... it was so great seeing them. We drove to my hometown, and then went to the audiologist that my father, mother, and I go to, to check Shepherd's hearing. She knows our family history, and wanted to do some more thorough testing on Shepherd to make sure he didn't have my hearing loss (yes, I wear hearing aids... why? because I'm blind) (I always hate when people ask why I wear hearing aids. The better question is what type of hearing loss do you have or at least, what caused your hearing loss). Anyways, Shepherd does NOT have any type of hearing loss. His little ears work perfectly normal, and we're tickled to death about that.
The rest of the weekend, we spent visiting family, friends, and church folk from my dad's church. A grand time was had by all.. and we even got to see Shepherd's great-grandparents! They came on Saturday to see Shepherd, and there's nothing sweeter than seeing them hold Shepherd. We have pictures over at our flickr account.
With so many people, it's no wonder that Shepherd didn't do worse than he did (he was just a little fussy, but otherwise did well). I, on the other hand, was exhausted. Shepherd was eating every 1.5 to 2 hours, and at night, still the every 3 hours. I can't tell you how little sleep I'd gotten the week before traveling, much less the first few days there. On Saturday, I hit a wall. After feeding him before his bedtime, I handed him off to my mom, and started crying. Mom, Forrest, and my Aunt Heather (who has two little ones as well) all comforted me, and told me I needed to go sleep, they'd take care of Shepherd. I told them I couldn't sleep because at this point, I was beyond sleep. Forrest grabbed the keys to the car, and took me for a drive. We rolled the windows down, and drove through the countryside, listening to the crickets and frogs sing. I cried for the first 30 minutes, and just vented about everything that was bothering me. Then slowly I started to feel better, until finally, I was ready to go home. We'd been gone an hour, and Shepherd had been asleep 45 minutes of that. I went straight to bed, thinking that he'd wake up in 2 hours to feed again. 4 hours later, Shepherd woke up to eat. He slept for 5 hours!!! After feeding him again, I put him back down to sleep. He slept for an hour, but then woke up fussy. Mom had told me to bring him to her if he was fussy, so at 3 am, I handed him off again. She stretched him out for another couple of hours, and he went 5 hours again. So that night, I got some very good sleep. What a fabulous Easter present! :)
Then, as all good things have to come to an end, we came home last night. And today? I'm still recovering. There's no one here to hand him off to, no one else to hold him... just me and the boy, as Forrest is at work... but that's okay. I'm settling back into the swing of things here at home... because no matter how much I love North Carolina, and my family, this is our home... and no matter how many times I complain about living here... we live here... and I"m happy to be home again.