Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The joys of travel

Some of you may remember that during our car trip to Yavont last year, Jamie suggested that next time we should take a plane. Well, on the way back from this year's trip up north, he discovered that even that has its perils.

I'll give you a brief overview of the way our trip back went:
3:00PM ET: leave Nonni and Diddy's house for scheduled 5:25 flight.
4:00: arrive BWI.
4:50: manage to make it through check-in line and security.
5:20: Airline announces "brief delay". First lollipops given to calm boys.
6:10: Board aircraft.
6:25: announcement made that we are grounded due to weather.
6:40: get off airplane, get dinner.
7:30: get back on airplane.
7:45: plane leaves gate and taxis to corner of runway to wait for storms. Jamie asks several times "Are we in the air yet?"
8:30 second set of lollipops adminstered.
9:30 thunderstorms finally pass. Jamie has been entertaining other passengers by loudly proclaiming every flash of lightning. Now he annouces,screaming with glee, "I saw a plane take-off!" There was general applause and glee since this indicated that planes were flying again. Connor plays peekaboo with anyone who will bite. I change 3rd diaper since we've been on the plane.
9:45 plane takes off! Boys get celebratory M&Ms.
10:00: Entertainment portion of the flight begins for the boys (I'd been saving the batteries in the portable DVD player).
10:30: Jamie falls asleep, Connor eats 3-hour old chicken nuggets.
11:00: Jamie wakes up.
11:05: Connor falls alseep.
11:45: DVD player runs out of batteries
11:50: Jamie "reads" new Spiderman comic for remainder of flight (see post below).
12:45AM ET: Plane lands, Connor wakes up.
1:00 AM: We arrive at Baggage claim.
1:15 AM ET: We are still waiting for bags. Airline announces our bags will come in 5 minutes. 3rd lollipops administered. Connor, having exclaimed "Yoyipoppp!" begins dancing in a circle on the floor while eating lollipop with one hand and putting his woobie in his ear with the other. Jamie is running back and forth across the floor, and climbing the walls while proclaiming that his real name is Spiderman.
1:35 AM: Bags begin to arrive, conveniently on 2 carousels, so I have to run back and forth between them.
1:50AM: All bags have been unloaded and Connor's carseat is declared lost.
2:05: With loaner carseat, we leave airport. Connor announces in the car: "Cha-cha off pane!!!"
2:30: we arrive at home. I tell Connor it's baby night-nights and he says "No!". I ignore him, he deals with it.
3:00: Jamie argues for 3 books instead of 1, we settle on 2.
3:30: I open a beer and consume it in two gulps.
3:32: I have no further memory after this point.

Fortunately no one sat next to us, so even though Connor didn't have a ticket, we had 3 seats and the boys were unbelievable troopers. There was very little complaining all things considered and neither cried once, though there were several incidents of whimpering (some of them mine!). Many people complimented them on how good they were. Jamie slept til 9 (Houston time) the next day and Connor 'til 10:30!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow. Just wow. Excellent account.

Sarah said...

I am impressed that 3 hours passed between each lollipop dose.