Now that's love!

We made it back to Dallas! The journey, although extremely long, went very well. We had an extra seat on each flight and Ellie was a champ. She only slept for about an hour the entire time, so Damian and I were exhausted and totally out of "tricks" by the time we arrived in Dallas, but Ellie didn't mind -- she fell asleep within 2 minutes of getting in the car, opened one eye when I got her out of the car, changed her diaper and put her in PJ's, and slept for a total of about 14 hours. She's handling the jet lag better than both Damian and me!

During the journey, I witnessed the sweetest expression of love. We were about 6 hours into the Manchester to Chicago flight, enjoying the pre-landing snack/lunch, and I was desperate for anything to keep Ellie entertained...even non-organic grapes, which are on the FDA's "dirty dozen" (gasp!). Damian said he would give them to her. A few minutes later, Damian hadn't given Ellie any grapes, so I started cutting some in half and gave her one. Damian said, "I said I would give them to her." I thought he was either doing his grumpy old man impression or he just wanted the honor of giving her a treat. I went back to enjoying my pizza and then noticed, out of the corner of my eye, Damian give Ellie part of a grape that had been in his mouth. I thought he was eating half of each grape and giving Ellie the other half. Strange when he had a knife on his tray, but who am I to judge. Then, I noticed that he was actually giving her both halves of each grape, so then I thought it was really weird that he was choosing to bite the grapes in half rather than cut them. After observing for a few more minutes (I certainly wasn't going to ask him given how convincing his grumpy old man impression can be), I figured out what was actually going on...Damian was sucking off the pesticide from each grape. Sort of weird? Definitely. But it was also the sweetest thing I've ever seen -- he loves his little girl so much!