Atlanta

We just got back from Shreya's second major trip: ten days in Atlanta. This was an exciting adventure for us, as it was the first time Shreya traveled on an airplane. The journeys went pretty well. On the outbound flights, which were in the morning and afternoon, Shreya was very happy, spending the first flight bouncing on Mommy's lap and the second one sleeping. The return flights were in the late evening, and here she was a bit tired and cranky, but after a little bit of hollering, again spent most of the time sleeping. On the whole, I think traveling with her was reasonably successful.

The trip to Atlanta was dual purpose. Tom spent the weekdays attending a workshop at Georgia Tech. Of course Shreya and I need not have accompanied him to Atlanta for that, but my sister is in Atlanta for the year, and since we had not seen her since Thanksgiving (except over skype) we decided to go as well. We had a lovely time. When both Tom and Pallavi were working, Shreya and I lazed around either at home or in the park or the bookstore. Other times, we lazed around with Pallavi and Shreya demonstrated her bouncing, babbling and smiling abilities. Even on the weekend, when Tom was free, we did not go and see Atlanta sights, preferring to walk in the park or take Shreya to the pool. The only touristy thing that we did was to visit the Civil War museum, to see the cyclorama. That was quite spectacular, though I wish that in addition to the guided tour with commentary, the museum had allowed us to walk around and examine the gigantic painting at our own speed. (Shreya was a little disruptive, but once we were in the guided tour, there was no easy way to leave with her. If we had realized beforehand that it would be like that, we might not have gone, but under the circumstances, we stayed put and watched the show. If the other museum-goers were annoyed with us, they were at least too polite to say so.)

In the mad hassle that was packing for this trip, we managed to remember to take the car seat (not hard since Shreya was sitting in it), the locking clip for the car seat (very forgettable, but we didn't!) diapers and wipes, and toys. Alas, what we did forget was the camera! And then it turned out that Pallavi didn't have one in Atlanta and the one belonging to Tom's collaborator, which we might have tried to borrow, was broken. Finally, Pallavi borrowed one from someone for a couple of days, and between that and the camera on the laptop, we did get some pictures. But we missed recording for posterity the bouncing baby on the plane (Are you allowed to take pictures on airplanes?)


Here Mommy and Shreya are startled out of a nap by a big laptop looming over them.


Shreya meets her aunt. At first she was cautiously friendly

but Pallavi is very good with kids and soon won her over!



Sitting on Mom's shoulder is fun!