leaf spectrum, portland, OR, Canon Rebel Xti

We love Portland! and had such an incredible time… as you can see below, Ben is a fan.

We had a sunny stroll in the Japanese Garden and took photos of the fiery autumn leaves, browsed in the ginormous Powell’s for as long as Ben could stand it, stayed at the very hip Ace Hotel (blinded Ben with the photobooth flash way too many times) and had the best cappuccino of my life at Stumptown Coffee Roasters. We also stayed with friends in Overlook and got a taste of life with kids in Portland. We will definitely be back.

The flight home was only a bit more than an hour but felt really long….we were those people. You know the ones with the screaming baby? Things were going okay when he was climbing the seats, pushing buttons and grabbing the hair of the people around us. He was even charming when he would wave at people until they agreed to play with him. But toward the end of the flight, he would remember how tired he was, hurl his head back and scream until he threw up. Then he would quiet down. Then he screamed again, threw up all over me, and quieted again. His diaper was extremely full but we were afraid to change him on the plane so we were trying to hold out until landing. The woman next to us looked like she was holding her nose and breathing into her hand. Matt and I kept huddling ourselves as close as we could to the window to keep our fumes concentrated. It was an adventure!

I remembered something my friend Susan told me once. She was on a plane and sat next to a mom with a baby. She told them at the beginning of the flight, “I love babies. I don’t mind crying and if you need to get up, I’m happy to hold him.” Wouldn’t you just love it if someone said that to you? I prayed that our seatmate would be an angel like that.

At the end of the flight, the woman next to me said, “He was so good!” I was shocked. I thanked her for being so tolerant. In her sweet english accent, she said, “Truly, it was my pleasure. He is such a sweet boy.” Then as we got off the plane, everyone gushed over him again. It was a good lesson in assuming that people are much kinder than we think.

And we are really happy to be off that plane.