I made it to Erie, PA with my 6 month old son…by myself… well almost…
We got up at 3 am… I chose a flight scheduled for 6 am. I guess I was thinking that would give me a whole extra day at our destination… but I won’t be doing that again. My husband was flying to San Diego for a conference related to work the day before. With one large suitcase, a diaper bag, a car seat, an umbrella stroller, and my 21.5 lb son in tow, we left the house at 4 am. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how we were going to get from the car in the economy parking lot to the bus to the airport, up the escalator, and down the large hall to the check in counter. “Sometimes we just have to put ourselves in impossible situations and find a way out” I remarked to my husband the day before. He was so worried, he called his friend who met me in the economy parking lot and helped me move everything. THANK GOD and my husband! I would never have made it. How do single mothers do it????
We made it through security and were allowed to declare the Benedyl which I was counting on to sedate my sniveling child… That’s right… sniveling. Two days before our trip, he came down with a cold. No fever, just lots and lots of mucous. Ick! Two nights before our trip, I lay next to him in bed listening to the mucous rattle in his little nasal cavity worrying about whether or not he would die from asphyxiation before the morning light. It was awful. In the morning, I used saline drops and set him upright to play. Before long, there were two long trails of yellowy you know what to capture before he decided to chew on his hands again.
Anyway, back to the trip. I forgot to put the diper rash ointment in the ziploc baggy. So we were stopped as the security officers looked with concern at the x-ray of my bag. Finally, the found the offending material and allowed me to pass without further contest. I got my shoes back on, repacked the bottles of milk, ziploc baggy and id items, put the baby back in the umbrella stroller and was on my way.
Once we were seated at our gate, people looked at Gabriel as if he were a ticking time bomb disguised as a harmless puppy. The person who took my boarding pass took one look at the feet sticking out of sling Gabriel was peacefully sleeping in and said, “That is an infant, right?”
The trepidation was unmistakeable. We sat in a window seat next to an air marshal (or so I thought). He was very tolerant. It became immediately apparent to me that Gabe could not be held horizontally in my lap without his feet extended out onto the legs of the air marshal. So I positioned him at a slightly awkward angle with his feet extending toward the back of the seat in front of us. The air marshal asked, “Is he always this good or did you give him Benadryl?”
“Ahhhh, he’s one of us.” I privately sighed. Later I found out that he was going to spend the next couple of days with his 13 year old son.
Gabe had a couple of fussy moments, but no bouts of inconsolable crying. I arrived to Detroit with a splitting headache and overall drowsy feeling. Caffeine was critical to my survival. We stopped immediately at Caribou Coffee and I got a medium regular coffee. Then we proceeded to make our way to the next gate. I stopped and took pic’s of Gabe at the fountain and in the tunnel. We checked in, used the restroom and took some more pic’s by the window with the planes. They put me in a seat with no one beside me. So I was a little less stressed. Gabe did fine again, sleeping and eating off and on. I was feeling great after having had my caffeine fix. And so we arrived to my hometown at 9:30 am.
Two days later, Gabe and I are still exhausted and recovering but enjoying our time with family and friends. Overall, I would say that the flight was a success. But I wouldn’t want to do it again any time soon.
By the way, if you are reading this thinking that I should have requested assistance (like one of those little beep beep cars), they cost an additional 75-100 dollars.
