and we're back!

Oh my goodness! two weeks have absolutely flown by! and so many changes in my baby over that time i can hardly believe it. South Africa was absolutely amazing. fantastic trip. the baby, despite all my irrational fears, was a perfect little angel on the flight there - even with her first ever cold (the dosings of benadryl to contain copious amounts of snot may have helped). on the flight back she slept almost the entire time too. and we had no problems adjusting to the six hour time change. i think the overnight flight really helps.  we relaxed. slept in until 11:30 every day, drank wine, played with the baby, watched soccer. i went to a glass bead making class which was really cool, although slightly scary lighting the giant torch. we (of course) attended some world cup games, visited a nature preserve and saw elephants, zebra, giraffe, and a lion preserve where we got to pet lion cubs. all in all extremely cool. and miss m started to really get good at pulling herself up to standing, saying "Hi!!" and "Bye!" and "Uh oh..", waving, crawling - especially to find us, and eating solid foods. i mean she just really grew up while we were there. very exciting.
what was really interesting was the culture in regards to children there. first of all people LOVED merit. i mean, how could you not? but seriously - men, women, kids, adults, african, afrikaaner, indian, chinese. it didn't matter. they would hold her (like literally take her and walk around with her - which really freaked out jack but she loved it), talk to her, give her cookies, rub her arms, hold her hands, touch her cheeks, make faces at her. it was crazy. and she totally loved it. we would walk into a place and she would immediately start with her waving and  "hi!hi!hi!" so people would come over to see her. but we saw very few other children her age out. according to jack's mom, although S.A. is child friendly, you'd never see them b/c everyone has nannies and the kids stay at home. very strange. but the other great thing was i got absolutely no looks whatsoever nursing her in public. not on the plane or anywhere else. it was extremely refreshing. these are just things that don't happen in the states. people aren't comfortable with other people's children,people are too scared that some crazy parent is going to accuse them of hurting their child. and of course, it happens and you have to be cautious but i'm afraid we're overly cautious. and its a shame b/c it just makes our children uncomfortable in public. obviously it starts at home, teaching children who is ok to talk to and not, what to do when a stranger asks you into their car...but to just be able to go out and other people enjoy your kid and help you out if you need it without fear of CPS being called on them, it was refreshing. and the breastfeeding in public - so great! i mean, we do it here and i think the attitude is not what it used to be, but there is NO attitude there. it was nice. i'll miss you south africa.