Getting There

Michael was scheduled for a work trip this week in Kentucky, about 2 hours south of where my sister and her husband live. It was ironic, because Karen and Karl had just spend 10 days in Minnesota visiting over Labor Day. We joked that we should be getting together for more "sib time," something we couldn't seem to get enough of when they visited less than two weeks ago. Karen and Karl had met Ollie for the first time on that trip, and stood with us as Godparents at his baptism.

About a week later, Michael walked into the living room to tell me the bad news that his work trip had been extended to last four nights instead of two. "Okay," I said, trying to be a grown-up about it, and already thinking about how Oliver and I would spend our time alone. "But it's okay," Michael said, "because you're coming with." After calling Karen to verify that they were not sick of us ("far from it" was the response), Michael booked our flights for Cincinnati.

I'll admit to being a bit high-strung in anticipation travelling with our almost 3-month-old by plane. The details of what to pack, how to pack it, how to get through security smoothly, and how to make the ear pressure issues of an infant not end up in two hours of screaming overwhelmed me in fearful anticipation.

The day of the flight, we woke up at 3am, fed Ollie a bottle and groggily got ourselves out the door. Ollie slept in the car, and slept through the airport. So far so good. But then we waited for over 20 minutes at the ticketing counter for the personnel to find my reservation. After it was found, we headed for the next challenge: security.

Because I have a pacemaker and cannot go through metal detectors (there is a risk that the detectors can affect the functioning of the pacemaker), I am required to go through the Employee entrance in checkpoint 3. Apparently it's speedier to do hand-checks with this system. But with a baby in tow, this would prove to be complicated. Oliver had to be out of his carseat and stroller, with the whole system folded up on the belt. I needed Michael's help. They allowed Michael to go through, but only after 3 checkpoint agents said we could leave Oliver all strapped in. When the female TSA agent arrived to check me over, apparently everyone had changed their mind. Ollie had to come out, and everything laid out on the belt. I looked for Micheal, who was in The Beyond, having crossed through the detectors. With my infant over my shoulder, I was asked to disassemble everything and lift it onto the scanning belt. Just as I was about to decide whether to cry or complain, a saintly TSA agent did it for me, explaining that he had the same Graco stroller system at home.

After all 3 of us safely passed through, we discovered that our gate was blank on my boarding pass. Michael's had one, so we headed for the farthest concourse.
There was no flight there. We asked an agent where to go, and he directed us to another gate at another concourse. No flight there either. After walking the entire length of 3 different concourses, we found our flight a mere few minutes of our boarding. And Oliver slept.

As we boarded the plane, which was approximately the size of my Rav4, I watched as every passenger eyed us. It occurred to me what always used to cross my mind when I saw an infant on a flight I was boarding. It was an impending sense of dread: Nice, I would think. Just great. Hours in the air with a screaming child. I attempted to communicate via telepathy to each and every one of them: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

As it turns out, I had no reason to apologize. We gave the little dude another bottle during take-off, and a nuk during landing, to curb the effects of ear pressure build-up. He furrowed his brow a bit, and that was it.

When we arrived to the airport, we were a bit annoyed to discover that we needed to walk down the steps of the plane onto the tarmack to pick up our stroller and carseat before proceeding inside. Oh wait, I forgot to mention that it was raining. Hard. We snapped our stroller system together and plunked Ollie in his soaking-wet carseat.

When we got to the baggage claim, I felt waves of relief. We made it. I looked at Oliver, and this is what I saw:


So as it turns out, our little guy is as much of a peach in the air as he is on the ground. Even if it takes a bit of effort in getting there. And this week, as we spend our days with Karen and Karl, we are all on cloud 9.