Wednesday, August 19, 2009

That Lady with the Baby

Jack and I made our first plane trip together...and we made it in one piece. Our journey began when Mark drove us to his office in Silverthorne, we left at 6:45. My friend Treena and her almost 3 month old Justus drove Jack and I to the Denver Airport. Thank you Treena. By a little after 9, Jack and I were checked in and off to meet a dear friend who was just arriving in Denver for a Colorado vacation. At around 9:50 the chaos began.

The forementioned chaos really only lasted about an hour but seemed like much longer. It always does. Jack and I headed to security and were moving along fairly quickly when a series of terrifyingly loud beeps came over the intercom and the security line came to a halt. With Jack in one arm, the car seat in the other, and a backpack on my back, I bounced and he cried. I now know what it is like to be "that lady with the baby." The first few minutes we were in line I was hearing comments as we passed others, such as "awwww, cute baby." Now people were either averting their eyes as soon as I looked up or I was getting sypmathetic looks from other moms who have been there and done that. We spent a total of 40 minutes in the security area.

Next, we headed to the train to take us to our gate. Jack was no longer crying, he was screaming. He screamed the whole way to the A terminal, then all the way up the escalator, and into the bathroom. I got the sling ready, put him in, and inserted the bottle. Now I held the bottle in one with hand and the car seat with the other. We made it to the gate; it must have been the last gate in all of "A." He downed the whole bottle and passed out shortly before 11. Our flight was delayed of course. But, Jack never knew. Nor did he know that when we finally got on the plane, the flight attendants bumped his head with their butts what seemed like every time they walked by. He slept the whole flight, less the last 5 minutes, when he screamed again.

All in all, (I just said "all in all" and it made me feel like I was writing an elementary school paper conclusion) Jack did just great on the plane. He is just a little guy and people understood. To the woman who patted me on the shoulder and told me it would be okay, to the man who helped me down the escalator by carrying the car seat, to all the people on the train who tried to smile at me, and to the kind woman who told me my backpack was unzipped....THANK YOU! I now understand.

2 comments:

  1. Our first plane trip with Corbett (which happened to be to China) someone told us to buy a big bag of bit size candy bars and pass out to everyone around us at the beginning of the flight...just to ease the blow if he went downhill fast. Funny idea, we didn't do it...maybe next time. Sounds like you handle it all well!

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  2. Wow, so thankful that our flight was only an hour and a half, I don't know how you made it to China and back. And that's funny about the chocolate...I brought Dove Dark chocolates for that very same reason. : )

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