Actions speak louder than words

Rich is usually pretty squirmy when he’s getting his diaper changed. Not every single time, but usually. Just before dinner, we were all in the living room chatting and doing whatever. With no warning or context, Rich grabbed the travel changing mat, opened it up (and did his best to lay it flat), got down, and rolled over onto the mat in diaper-changing position.

STACY: Looks like Rich is ready to get his diaper changed.

Karen and I just kind of paused. And then started laughing. Stacy maybe didn’t know how unusual it was for Rich to do this, but to us it was hilarious. Rich has never opened up the diaper mat and gotten himself ready. Never. But he was ready, and he just stayed there until I came over and helped him. Sure enough, his diaper was full. Once changed, he went right back to playing and carried on with his evening.

It's the toddler in him

I think we thought waking up Rich an hour earlier than he normally gets up would encourage him to sleep on the flight to Fresno, but that’s not exactly what happened. Rich handled the drive to the airport really well (er, as well as can be expected) and even everything up to boarding the plane. But while on the plane, there was just too much to look at. About halfway through the flight, he was done. He wanted to move around and couldn’t, and he wanted to touch everything to the fullest extent and couldn't. We thought he was stinky at one point, so I took him to the bathroom and tried to change him, but there certainly was not enough room in there to change a baby’s diaper. I went back to Karen and exchanged the diaper stuff for his blanket, and then Rich and I headed back into the bathroom. I held him in that crazy tight space and bounced and soothed him as best I could. It wasn’t even a minute, I think, before he fell asleep, pacifier in mouth. We headed back to our seat and I held him. And we slept.

Almost the entire remainder of the flight. He woke up about 18 minutes before landing and wanted to resume opening and shutting his mom’s window shade, which was about the only thing that could keep him occupied for an extended period of time. It was a successful trip.