Tales of a Frequent Flyer

At only two years old, my daughter has made the trek across the country to visit Grandma and Grandpa half a dozen times, jet-setted to Hawaii and done a tour of the Pacific Northwest.  You could say she is a fairly seasoned traveler (I think the first time I EVER got in an airplane I was 10).  Every time we fly, for weeks leading up to the trip, I convince myself this time will be the hardest age to fly with a kid.  I remember the first time we flew with her, she was 4 months old; I lost so much sleep thinking about that flight and in retrospect, it was probably the easiest one.

Thinking about each of those flights, we have been pretty lucky, but haven't completely avoided issue.  Here are two stories that stand out to me.

First…The Bad
Last October, my husband, daughter and I planned a trip out to visit my husband’s parents in upstate New York.  Best case scenario it is a 5 ½ hour trip there and 6 ½ back, and that is if you have a direct flight.  I however, am cheap and will sacrifice a layover to save a buck so now you are looking at 8-12 hours each way. 

As our trip approached, my husband’s Grandmother’s health had taken a turn for the worst.  We were grateful to already have the trip scheduled so that we could be there in the event she passed away.  Sadly, while we were there, she did pass and is now in heaven.

This presented us with a decision, should we all extend our trip a few days to attend the funeral or should just my husband stay back.  We decided the best option would be for Cara and me to go home as scheduled and for Kevin so stay.  Cara, like most toddlers, is a creature of routine.  Five days away from home and she was getting really charming, plus the chances of keeping a 1 ½ year-old quite at a funeral was close to zero.  This did however, present one challenge for me, my first solo trip with kiddo…cue scary music.

The next day, Cara and I got dropped off at the airport, got through security and boarded our plane without incident.  Great.  That was when things went downhill.  We were getting settled in row with a women who looked like she would be tolerant of a toddler and praying that someone wouldn’t take the middle seat (Recall, I am cheap.  I didn’t pay for a seat for Cara since she was under two).  Cara starts chatting friendly with the women, everything was fine until the man seated in front of me turns around and says, “I will not listen to that for the next 5 hours.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“You will keep her quiet,” he commanded.

With disbelief on my face I said, “She is a baby and she is just talking, I can’t tell her to stop.”

“You need to figure it out,” he said.

My blood is starting to boil, “You are being inappropriate,” I replied.  And that was the end of our conversation.  At least I had had that last word.

I glance over at the women in our row and she gives me a sympathetic look.  I can’t believe what just happened.  If Cara had been screaming, okay maybe, but she was just talking, more quietly than some of the adults boarding the plane.  My heart is beating out of my chest.  My only reassuring thought is that at least Kevin is not here because he would have punched the guy and we would have been stuck in New York on the do-not-fly list.

The plane is getting fuller, and someone begrudgingly takes the middle seat next to the toddler.  Everyone has boarded, the flight attendants close the door, and we wait.  We sat on the tarmac for at least an hour before taking off.  Meanwhile, the safety instructions are no longer interesting and I start going through a circuit of toys to keep Cara occupied and ‘quiet.’

We lost another 45 minutes in the air due to weather, so my five hour flight had grown to seven.  Meanwhile, the guy in front of me makes a point of turning around to give me a look when I so much as bump his seat to cross my legs.

We finally get to Las Vegas for our layover and I am exhausted from seven hours of coloring, stickers, playing cards, snack, nap, repeat.   Yet, I also feel vindicated because Cara didn’t cry, not once.  It was at that point I realized, how a child behaves on a plane is as much the child’s temperament as it is the parents dedication.  So now when I hear a child scream for an entire flight I am sympathetic, but there is also a small part of me judges and blames the parents for not trying harder because now I know what it takes.

I wheel Cara over to a restaurant while we wait for our next flight.  We split a quesadilla and I enjoy a nice tall beer, because I deserve it.

And Now….the Good

Last week we went to visit my husband's folks again in New York for the 4^th of July holiday.  We had a great trip, saw cows, ate ice cream, went swimming, but were also ready to get back home.  We get to the airport and are checking in when the United rep tells us our flight to DC is delayed 2 hours, meaning we will miss our connection, meaning we are stuck.  Uggg.

“Let me see what I can do,” he says as he plucks away at his computer.  I tell him we can fly into any of four airports, anything that will get us to the Bay Area.  After a minute or so he tells us he can get us into San Francisco at 8:30 on US Airways.  We were originally scheduled to arrive in San Jose at 11:30 (we had two layover, see explanation above).  Would this be okay? Heck Yeah!  This would be flying into an airport closer to home and arriving three hours earlier, this is absolutely okay.

We get our vouchers and head over the US Airways counter.  There, a nice woman immediately starts helping us get our boarding passes seeing that our hands are full of kid and luggage.  “Let me just make sure you are all together,” she says.  We weren’t for the first flight so she fixed that, for the second we were but magically three seats, together, in the bulkhead are available.  Would we like those?  Ummm…YES!  Jackpot!

So now we are saving three hours, arriving closer to home, have plenty of leg room.  At one point there was a question of if we could make our connecting flight in Charlotte, but we did AND the plane made up an additional 30 minutes in the air.

I have NEVER been so lucky with flights and probably won’t ever be again.  But just to keep the good Karma going I made a donation to charity when we got home.  You don’t want to mess with Karma.

How Elmo Became Red

A little over a month ago I was rapidly heading towards my daughter's second birthday.  My in-laws were coming into to town for the occasion, roughly 30 people (many of them under 3 feet high) were expected at my house for the event, my house was a mess (ummm, I have a two-year old) AND oh yeah, I was about five month pregnant.

Anyone with a two-year-old can tell you that Elmo is for all intensive purposes, royalty.  Carol, my daughter, was saying Elmo’s name before that of many close family members (to their disappointment).  I knew three months before the party that it was going to be an Elmo theme.  We were going to have Elmo invitations, Elmo decorations, and yes, an Elmo cake. 

My master plan was to make the cake myself.  I think being a working mom, I was feeling the mommy guilt big time and thought somehow I could redeem myself by making the cake.  My husband was starkly opposed to this idea.  He was firmly convinced that I should do everything I could to simplify the weekend and went so far as to check local bakeries to see who could make us an Elmo cake.  If you know my husband, he rarely takes interest in these types of things.  Unless it is about the Yankees or Syracuse basketball, it is really tough to get his attention, so his interest in this was unusual.  He was unsuccessful at finding a bakery that could do what we wanted, so it was relatively easy to convince him (and myself) that I could totally handle it.  How hard could it be?  A piping bag…some frosting, this was going to be a ‘piece of cake.’

I should preface that when I say ‘make the cake,’ I really mean open a couple boxes of Duncan Hines cake mix and several containers of pre-made frosting.  (I can and have baked cakes in the past, but figured Elmo alone was a big enough challenge for this particular weekend).

So here we are, the night before the party, cakes are made and cooling in the fridge.  We have returned from dinner out with the family with a very cranky Cara.  It is well past her bedtime and she is refusing to go to sleep in her bed so I curl up with her in my bed and she quickly drifts off.  Fast forward three hours later as my husband is making his way to bed.  It is 11 pm; I apparently also drifted off while the cake lies undecorated in my fridge downstairs….shit!

I head downstairs to tackle Elmo still thinking this should be easy…in a half hour I will be back in bed, sleeping like a baby.  I started mixing the red food coloring into the white frosting.  I start with five drops, stir…it’s pink.  Add five more, stir…still pink.  Add ten, pink.  Another ten.  Pink!  Fifteen minutes later and entire bottle of red food coloring.  I have very dark pink frosting, but it isn’t red.  (Later than evening it occurred to me that I should have used food coloring gell, not liquid, lesson learned).  Additionally, after all the stirring, the frosting was warm and not holding its shape well.   Elmo is a red (not pink) fuzzy monster.  Drippy fur wasn’t going to cut it.  Despite the color and texture, I decided to go for it and create Elmo on the cake.  Making the shape was easy, but he was pink and his fur was lack-luster.  At this point, I decided I would run by the grocery store first thing in the morning while out on my balloon run and pick up some pre-dyed red frosting just touch up the cake best I could.  It was 12:30 am and I felt defeated.

Cue 6:30 am the following day (if you have a two-year-old, you also know that sleeping in does not exist).  I get up make pancakes, get the kiddo fed and seated in front of Elmo (don’t think about judging me).  I run to the grocery store, no red frosting.  Not only that, but they are out of helium, no balloons either…seriously!

I know that the party supply store across town has red frosting, but they don’t open until 9:30.  It is not even 8:30.  The party is at 1….ugg.  I go home, still feeling defeated and work on getting the house in order.  Once the party supply store opened I ran across town for the frosting, picked up balloons, grabbed some ice for the ice chest and was ready to roll. 

I get home, open my fridge, pull out the cake, Elmo is red.  Apparently overnight, the magic defeated-mommy-frosting-fairy visited my house and using her special powers, transformed Elmo into a bright red monster.  WTF!  (My dad, the every pondering scientist thinks that all that stirring the night before whipped so much air into the frosting giving it the appearance of being pink and once settled, reflected the actual color…I still have my fairy theory).  So Elmo is red, awesome, I’ll take it!  I do some touch up on the fur; slap her name on the cake.  And that boys and girls, is how Elmo became red.

 
Carol enjoying some birthday pizza