Ok, so I didn't totally lose my mind....I just thought that it would be easier than it was, somehow. ;) Here's how it went.
Isabel and I drove to the airport and parked at one of those big parking lots. The shuttle bus picked us up before I'd even gotten Isabel out of the car! In fact, he was so efficient that he'd whisked us off before I locked the car. Luckily he flew down the next row of cars, and I could hit the lock button on my remote from inside the speeding bus. That guy was fast. I was sure we were going to take a bumper or two along with us, but he managed to miss them all and deliver us in one piece to the American Airlines spot of the curb. We checked our suitcase at AA's Skycap outside and the nice man didn't even charge me for my suitcase! He did shamelessly ask for a tip though. Unfortunately for him, I only had $2 in cash on me, so that's all he got! We then cruised in and breezed through security. I was wearing Isabel in the Baby Bjorn, and I didn't even have to take her off to go through the metal detector. The hardest part was taking my flip flops off and picking them up off the floor to put on the conveyor belt. It's just hard to bend over with a 15-lb infant strapped to your chest. ;)
Then we ambled to our gate - I had given us plenty of time in case we had any snags - we didn't - so we were rather early. I was a little worried about how we'd pass the time, but then I realized that Isabel would want to eat, so I nursed her in a nice, discreet corner seat next to our gate. I gave her only one boob so that she'd want to eat some more when we took off. Then of course she needed a diaper change, so off we went to the bathroom where instead of that nice heavy-duty plastic baby changing station that pulls down from the wall, all they had was a hard countertop that was designated as the baby changing place. Oh well, it worked.
We boarded the plane and much to my annoyance, we had the aisle seat next to these two men who looked like they'd never seen a baby before. I swear I could read their thoughts, "Oh great. A baby. She'll probably cry the whole flight." I stowed the diaper bag under the seat in front of me and struggled to remove Isabel and the Bjorn at the same time with only two hands. I've decided that new moms need to be issued at least two more hands/arms at the hospital because suddenly two aren't enough. I finally got untangled from the Bjorn and Isabel and I sat down in the seat which was only about half the width of my back end, where I was presented with the next problem. How does one buckle a floppy airplane seat belt with only one hand?! Isabel can't sit up by herself yet, and besides, I had nowhere to put her (I didn't think the guy next to me would appreciate having a baby plopped in his lap) but after 4 flights in as many days, I've perfected the art of one-handed airline seat belt fastening. It may become an Olympic sport sometime in the near future. As soon as I finally got belted in, Isabel pooped in her diaper. It was a nice big explosion - I felt the reverberations. She immediately got rather fussy, which I understand since I'd be rather fussy too with 3 pounds of poo in my pants. Unfortunately, we were taxi-ing down the runway, so I couldn't do anything about it! I tried to distract her by nursing her, but she was NOT having any of that. Part of the problem was that I was trying to be discreet and I had the Udder Cover on her. She let me know quite plainly that she did NOT want to be covered up. Eventually I gave up on nursing her and let her suck my knuckle on the way up.
Everything that I was worried about happening did happen during this flight...except the poop blowout or projectile vomiting. I guess it could have been worse. Her poo did stay in her diaper (thank you, God), but she was FUSSY the rest of the flight and alternated between talking LOUDLY and crying. I was desperately rooting around in the diaper bag trying to find her pacifer when the lady across the aisle asked if I needed help. Luckily I found the paci right then, and that plugged her up for a bit. Isabel, not the lady across the aisle. ;) She finally fell asleep as we were landing. Good timing, sweetie.
We had 40 minutes to get to our next flight, plus I had to change her diaper and go to the bathroom myself. Of course we were going from Concourse A to D in Dallas. Why are connecting flights NEVER in the same concourse?! I found our next gate and a bathroom and we just made it onto the flight before they closed the doors. Again, our seats were next to two men who looked less than thrilled to see us. However, we had a stroke of luck because I noticed that the two seats directly in front of the back galley were empty, so I asked the flight attendant if we could move there, and she said yes. That flight was MUCH more comfortable since we could spread out a little. Isabel was happy since she had a clean diaper. She nursed as we ascended and then slept the ENTIRE flight! Woohoo! Unfortunately my entire right arm fell asleep, and she went from being 15 lbs to about 100 during that flight, but I didn't want to move her and risk waking her up. ;) We got to Kansas City in good shape and one of the flight attendants even carried our 50-lb diaper bag out of the plane for us.
I should mention at this point that I'd dressed her all up in a pink & brown polka-dotted outfit with a pink crocheted headband and giant pink flower clipped to it. Having a super cute baby with a ginormous flower on her head really helped to smooth the way in the airport. We got all kinds of comments about how cute she was. In fact, we even got stopped by a lady in the bathroom who wanted to take Isabel photo. Anyway, I'd highly recommend putting a giant flower on your baby's head if you intend to fly somewhere. The bigger, the better...even if you have to crane your neck to see around it. I think it helps.
We had a great weekend with my family. My parents and sister were at the airport in Kansas City to meet us. Anthony (BIL) had stayed home with Isaac (my nephew) since he was taking his afternoon nap. When he got up from his nap, he saw my mom holding Isabel and he did NOT like that HIS Oma was holding another kid! He's not used to sharing my parents with anyone! He did not want to give her a high-five or a fist bump or anything all weekend! He also didn't want much to do with me, by extension. Oh well...I know he'll grow out of it. Hopefully before he's gone off to college. ;) Just kidding, Kara!!
The day before we were to fly back, I checked in online and printed our boarding passes. I decided to change my seat assignment when I discovered that we were going to be crammed into a plane the size of my shoe. It was one of those planes with one seat on one side and two on the other. The size of plane where MY head nearly brushes the ceiling, and I am 5'2 1/2". Maybe 5'3" with my flip flops on. I thought that it would be nice to be on the side where there's only 1 seat so that I didn't have to worry about Isabel kicking my seatmate in the ribs while I was nursing her. Unfortunately, my plan was foiled because they only put one oxygen mask above the seats on that side of the plane, so if you're riding with an infant on your lap, you have to ride on the other side of the aisle. grrr. The flight attendant (a short lady - I wonder if there is a height limit for flight attendants on those tiny airplanes) kept asking people if they'd switch seats with me and finally on the third try, she found someone willing. I again performed circus tricks trying to remove Isabel and the Baby Bjorn without smacking someone in the face with either the Bjorn or Isabel and then wedged myself into the seat that was the size of my thigh. I did the seat belt-fastening trick again with one hand while trying to keep Isabel's face from becoming permanently smooshed to the seat in front of me. Luckily it turned out that we had a nice seatmate. Again, Isabel did NOT want to eat with the Udder Cover on top of her, even though I'd turned our AC vent all the way up and our hair was blowing completely sideways from the strength of the wind. I finally gave up on that stupid nursing cover and out of desperation, just whipped out the boob for everyone to see. I tried to be discreet and cover most of it up with the burp rag, which mainly stayed in place, but at that point, I was beyond worrying about whether anyone saw part of my boob. If they were looking, that was their problem! That flight went pretty well...they gave us a snack - if you could call it that - a miniature bag that contained about 3 pretzels, which I tried to throw into my diaper bag on the floor, but I missed and instead dropped it onto the floor and then promptly stepped on it. Then I only had about 1 1/2 pretzels and a bunch of crumbs. Isabel slept for most of the flight though, which was good. We had some scary stomach-dropping turbulence approaching Houston (yeah, we had to fly Continental on the way home, and changed planes in Houston - definitely NOT my favorite airport) because of Tropical Storm Alex (who later became Hurricane Alex) that was all the way down off the coast near Cancun.
We finally all squeezed off the miniature plane and Isabel and I got set for our sprint to the next gate, which of course was in Terminal E. We arrived in Terminal B, naturally. Couldn't have been farther away. I speed-walked us to the train which took us slowly to Terminal E (I really think the train at DFW is faster!) and when we arrived at our gate, breathless and with shin splints (well, I don't think Isabel was particularly breathless and I'm pretty sure she didn't have shin splints), I discovered that our flight had been delayed due to weather. *sigh* I hadn't eaten lunch and it was 2:00 by this time, so Isabel and I went and found a Starbucks where I bought my favorite Iced Apple Chai and a blueberry scone. I ate it and sprinkled crumbs into my nursing bra (snack for later?!) and Isabel while bouncing around from one foot to the other, trying to keep Isabel from becoming grumpy at the lack of action. We again got more comments on how cute she was. This time I'd dressed her in an outfit from her Tia Lily - a blue onesie with big white & yellow daisies on it, yellow pants w/a ruffle at the bottom, and a navy blue headband with a giant navy blue flower on it. The flower center had sequins, of course. She was stylin'.
They boarded us for the flight to Austin at 3pm, and then finally announced after we'd been sitting there cooking on the plane for about 45 minutes that we were just waiting on our pilot crew. Um yeah....kind of important!! Apparently they were flying in from someplace else, and they'd gotten diverted to Austin because of the bad weather in Houston!! Geez! It wasn't even raining in Houston when we arrived! Finally after we'd been sitting on that plane for an hour and fifteen minutes our pilots arrived and turned on the AC. Too little too late. By that point I had a lake running down the small of my back. I'd purposely waited to nurse Isabel until we got on the plane thinking that I'd be nursing her as we went up (to help alleviate some of the pressure change in her poor little ears), but nope. She finished eating and we were still sitting there on the ground. She got restless after that, so I sang "Winnie the Pooh" (her favorite song) to her about 1,542 times until we were finally airborne. By the way, after waiting in a hot plane for an hour and fifteen minutes for our flight crew, we then had to wait another 15 minutes or so on the tarmac for our turn to take off. Yay.
As soon as we were in the air, Isabel pooped. Yay again. However, the flight attendant had announced that there was a changing table in the restroom, so I decided to investigate. I knew from past experience that the three of us (Isabel, me, and the diaper bag who has become its own entity) would not fit in there, so I just took a diaper and the wipes along. We lurched in the door (again, more turbulence, just as we stood up...lovely) and the flight attendant showed me the so-called changing table. It looked like a mini ironing board that came out of the wall. I put Isabel carefully down on it, and she looked up at me with a big grin as if to say, "I'm trusting you not to drop me down that toilet, mom!" Somehow I managed to change her poopy diaper all while bouncing off the walls like a pinball in a pinball machine. I think she thought it was fun - kinda like a roller coaster.
Finally, 3 hours late, we made it back to Austin, both of us cranky and tired of traveling. There are just lots of reasons why it would be easier to travel with your spouse or a friend. Having more than one set of hands is one. My main reason though? Having to sit all hugged up to some stranger while my baby throws a mini fit. No fun.
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