flying with baby

There were two legs of our trip to grammy and grandpa's house. The first was to leave at 6 am. Thankfully, it was out of the local airport, so we only had to leave a few minutes before 5. The road was foggy as we headed to the airport. My husband helped us in, and stayed with us until we went through security. He should have stayed longer.

That fog kept us at the airport until about the time our connecting flight left Detroit. We were the lucky ones though. Of the three flights that leave our little town around 6 am, the other two flights boarded, then sat on the runway for 60 - 90 minutes. We only sat in the terminal. That was a tremendous blessing because it allowed for Kiddo to run around, not be confined to my lap. While we certainly did plenty of tours around the waiting area, she also stopped to rest plenty, and laid herself in the middle of the floor. Finally, around 8 she was tired enough that I rocked her for 20 minutes, then she fell asleep in my arms, which was more than a little miracle. I found a chair in the corner, and sat down with her. She shuffled, and made it clear she was not into sleeping this way, so I put her on the floor, and she napped until boarding time. Yes, that made twice in one morning that I had to wake my daughter from a sound sleep.

She's a good sport, and the flight was uneventful. In Detroit we had a long way to go from one gate to the other. We got to walk down a long tunnel, ride a train, and go on moving walkways. She loved it all (except the parts where I made her hold my hand for safety - I am no fun). We went to McDonalds for lunch, where we found that she loves sweet-n-sour sauce (mmm, high fructose corn syrup), and is okay with mcnuggets. She also learned that if you dip your fingers in the sauce, then wave your hand around you can really get the sauce to fly. She only got to practice that once.

By some strange twist of fate we sat next to the same person on the second flight as the first. I'm not clear how she felt about that, but she didn't noticeably cringe.  The three hours on my lap for the second flight were much harder than the first, but with lots of stories, some quiet music, and some iPod movies (thanks to my mother-in-law's generosity) we made it through.

At the final airport, there were so many people that Kiddo couldn't really run around, but that's okay, within minutes of strapping her into the carseat, she was out for the duration of the ride. 

Although I didn't mention it, there was plenty of singing in every place we were.