I'm Flying Mommy! Part 2.

photo courtesy of feminists-eh.blogspot

Happy first Canada Day to all the new babies out there. 

Anyway, back to the first flights with Babe.

I was flying out of Seattle because it's so much cheaper than flying out of Vancouver. My round trip ticket from Seattle to D.C. cost less than $400 and a round trip ticket from Vancouver to D.C. would've been about $1300. So although it's a hassle to drive down to Seattle the price difference made it worth the trip.

I didn't have many choices for flights because I wanted a cheap direct flight. No transferring planes with a baby in tow for me thanks. So our departing flight was at 7:30 am which meant a sleepover in a local hotel.

On the moving walkway.

As I mentioned in the last post, my two main concerns were Babe's behaviour on the plane and of course, crashing. And I knew that both were mostly out of my hands. You can read in part one all the plans I had to try to keep Babe from upsetting the other passengers but if she was determined to kick up a fuss I wouldn't have been able to remove her from the area, and that was stressing me out.

As far as crashing was concerned there was nothing I could do except to not go at all.

So I did what everyone who is afraid of flying does. No, I didn't take a sedative, I have to nurse remember? I prayed and bargained and paced and fidgeted. And I sat at the gate scanning my fellow passengers trying to decide if any looked like terrorists or if the group looked like the type of people whose smiling portraits you see flashing on the news channel after a disaster.

And once on the plane all I could do was hug my baby tight and trust the pilots and crew. Part of me knew that we would be fine but a little part of me felt like I was putting my baby in danger uneccissarily - after all, we didn't have to go. But I really wanted to visit my friend and I hate bowing to fear so we were going. I had tears in my eyes when we took off though.

Babe was fine. She was actually in her element. Everyone around us was smiling and waving at her and she was in my arms for five hours straight. She couldn't have been happier. I on the other hand was really uncomfortable. She squirmed the whole time, constantly dropped toys and only slept for twenty minutes. She also desperately wanted to touch the man sitting beside us so it was a lot of work to keep that from happening. But she never screamed and showed no signs that her ears were bothering her - so the first flight was a success!

Arriving after a long flight.

The only time I wasn't holding her was in the last hour when I couldn't wait any longer to pee and asked one of the stewardesses to hold her while I went. I relished that five minutes in the crappy airplane john. It was my own little first class. So roomy, so quiet. I stayed in longer than I needed to.

The flight back was a little harder.

First of all I was absolutely positive that I was leaving on Friday. Not only had I checked my ticket a thousand times but I had also booked a hotel for my parents (who were picking me up) for Friday night in Seattle. The mix-up came because it was an overnight flight (so leaving one day and arriving - just barely - on the next) and combined with the time difference and the way the ticket read I got totally confused. Basically I fucked up.

You can see where this is going.

I hate traveling with dirty clothes so everything was washed, dried, folded and neatly packed (no small feat with a baby tugging at your heels). Half a day of visiting was wasted on getting ready to go. Babe was clean and in her airplane clothes and ready for the flight. My anxiety was on high again knowing we had to fly and the hour and a half drive in traffic was grating because Babe was screaming most of the time.

Getting all the way there only to find out that my flight wasn't until the next night was horrible. Never, ever let this happen to you when you have a baby. I felt like such an idiot. I was embarrassed that my friend had driven us all the way out only to have to turn around and do it again the next night. And I knew my parents would be less than pleased to have driven all the way to Seattle only to have no one to pick up at the airport.

The next hour sucked. There was no way of contacting my parents so I had to track down their hotel and leave them a message telling them they'd have to stay an extra night. The flight that I thought I was on was over-booked so there was no getting on that and the airline didn't have another flight to Seattle until my flight 24 hours later. I was so desperate not to go back in the car with my fussy baby that I seriously thought about getting a hotel at the airport. But we would've had to check out at 11 am and then what would we have done until our 9:30 pm flight? Plus it seemed dumb to waste all that time alone in a hotel when I could've spent it visiting with K.

So K drove us allll the way back to her place. I think Babe fell asleep...I can't remember. I was super bummed and really stressed out. I'm usually so organized. Always on time, everything scheduled in my day planner. I was so mad at myself for making such a rookie mistake.

That night I tried to unpack as little as possible and the next night we loaded everything back into the car and headed back to the airport. On a positive note; the extra day allowed us to fit in some sight-seeing that we hadn't had a chance to do and as another friend pointed out, it was better than arriving at the airport a day late and having to buy another flight home.

Our flight was delayed and so we didn't leave the tarmac until about 10:30 pm But that was OK because the Baltimore airport has rocking chairs lined up near the windows. At hours past Babe's bedtime and laden with heavy bags I couldn't have been happier to see them. Babe and I rocked and watched planes for over an hour.

Babe in her jammies waiting for our delayed flight home.

We had an aisle seat with two seats beside us. The plane was almost full when a family with two young daughters got on. The parents took the seats behind us and their kids took the seats in our row.

Just before take off the militant father leaned forward and giving his best drill sergeant impression said:

"OK. Don't take out your cameras on this flight. It's night time. No one wants their picture taken. There is nothing to see out the windows so just leave your cameras in their bags.

Be quiet. Play quietly. People want to sleep so be QUIET.

There will be no hitting. No punching. No kicking. No screaming.

Stay in your seats. No squirming and no getting up and down. If you have to go to the bathroom, go now.

There's a baby beside you. Don't touch the baby, don't talk to the baby, don't ask to hold the baby. Do you understand?
"
The girls looked genuinely concerned for their safety.

I thought that's a long list of rules buddy and I laughed out loud.

I shouldn't have laughed.

As soon as we reached cruising altitude and the parents fell asleep the girls got into a fight. I don't know what it was about. It was probably about nothing, but they really got into it. Before long they were kicking the snot out of each other and they continued for almost an hour. And when I say, "kicking the snot out of each other" I mean really beating each other up. They were as violent to one another as they could be within the constraints of their airplane seats. They punched and slapped and got their legs up and kicked each other - in the face!

They even used their seat belts as weapons!

I spent that first hour trying to protect Babe's head from catching a stray fist and willing the parents to wake up and take notice.

Eventually Drill Sergeant Daddy did wake up and he was mad. But not mad enough to actually do anything beyond whisper-yell at them. Guess he was all bark and no bite. And his daughters knew it.

So the next few hours were much like the first. A lot of fighting interrupted by stern words from Dad, but no real action. You'd think they would split them up and each parent sit with one. But I guess neither Mom or Dad wanted to sit with their own kids.

Luckily Babe slept through it all and neither of us ended up with a black eye. And eventually the girls fell asleep and woke only long enough to punch the other if a body part accidentally flopped over the arm rest.

I was again very uncomfortable. Babe was asleep on me which severly limited my mobility. I finally did get my tray down, my laptop open and the internet purchased and working (all with one hand) but Netflix of course doesn't work in the sky and all I had to watch was the Sex And The City disc in my computer. I really wanted to watch it but the Princesses of Hell ruined that. I couldn't very well expose them to Samantha's sex scenes, but I was really bored. So I ended up watching it and turning off the screen every time a dirty part came up.

But thankfully Babe slept, the plane didn't crash and my parents stayed an extra night in Seattle and picked us up from the airport on the correct night.

All in all I would say that the first plane trips with my baby went really well.