Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Daddy's Girl

There was no hesitation at all for Liliana when she saw her papi at the airport.  We all had a big hug and felt right at home.  It was late though so she fell asleep on the way from the Guatemala City airport to Antigua, about a 45 minute drive.  We arrived at the hotel around 11:30pm and went in to relax.  All Liliana wanted to do was to be near her papi and show him anything and everything we took with us.  It was so exciting to see them chatting away and to witness Eduardo experiencing her in a whole new way.  She is much more talkative at this age now!  
We were all laying in bed at one point and Eduardo got up to go to the bathroom.  When he was walking away, Liliana's lip started quivering and she said "where's papi going?"  She was very concerned every time he was not in the same room even for a minute the whole trip.  
In Antigua and in Panajachel, you walk everywhere.  I absolutely love it.  But carrying a 3-year old isn't always easy for days on end.  I do pretty well with her in the sling, but her favorite place to be was up on Eduardo's shoulders.  They did this all the time and both equally enjoyed it.  I got lots of sweet pics :)
Being with Eduardo made both Liliana and I more at ease and more relaxed.  She only had 1 major tantrum the whole trip, where I experience at least 1 on a daily basis here at home because of so many factors that lead up to them (but that's a whole other topic).  It was a nice taste of what life will and can be like once Eduardo finally gets back here and we get back to our "semi-normal" life.  
I think that reconnection also just put some sense of peace into Liliana's life.  Before we went she would cry every day for her papi and for El Salvador.  That's the main reason we went down.  She has had a few of those days the longer we are away now, but in general she seems better than before.  One day after we had gotten back I told Liliana I was sad because I missed papi and she said "It's okay, mami.  Papi comes soon." It's a good thing we have each other.  
I'm also glad that Eduardo and Liliana have such a great relationship.  I can honestly say she is a mommy's girl and a daddy's girl and I think that's the way it should be!  

Monday, October 10, 2011

Our Trip to Guatemala

We returned last Wednesday from our trip to Guatemala to see Eduardo.  I have just now recovered from the jetlag and will be writing about our trip in segments over the next few days.  I still need to get all our pictures onto the computer so I can share with you all!

The trip was incredible.  It was better than I ever imagined it would be!  Liliana was just enamored with Eduardo and would never leave his side.  She rode on his shoulders a LOT over our 5 days there (pics to come).  It was so nice to be a family again and we were all so relaxed.  All we did was focus on each other and nothing else.

One of the things I loved was that we really never knew what time it was the whole trip.  Every now and then we would ask someone for the time, but mostly we just did whatever we wanted.  We ate when we were hungry, we slept when we were tired, and we did whatever else we felt like in the moment.  Now keep in mind we did as much as we wanted considering we had a 3-year old with us!  That always changes things a bit.  

Eduardo and I talked on the trip about how great it is that Liliana gets to go on all these adventures with us.  Of course it would be nice to be alone with Eduardo and do different and even more fun things without having Liliana there, but she's a part of us and our family and we wouldn't trade our family adventures for anything.  We will lots of time when we are older to have our alone vacations ;)  

It was hard to come back from our little bubble of Guatemala, but we've gotten right back into the swing of things again.  I think it's actually harder for me now because I got to go and remember how much I love Eduardo and how much fun we have together and how we genuinely like to hang out together.  It was harder to separate this time.  Especially after see how much more relaxed Liliana was on the whole trip.  The stress of being a single mother definitely takes it's toll on our relationship here at times, though I hate to even admit that.  

In Guatemala, we mostly stayed in Antigua and took a trip to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan and a trip to El Salvador for a day.  As I said, I will write more on those trips in separate posts.  I just wanted to let you all know we are back and had an wonderful time!!