Up, Up, and Away

We have just returned from our second trip to Cincinnati, (this time for a friend's wedding), and our little traveller was once again turning heads. Pilots, flight attendants, airport fast food vendors, and busy suitcase-wheeling buisnesswomen at a near jog gave Oliver admiring looks and compliments. Happy and probably relieved co-passengers aboard our teeny tiny plane assured us they didn't hear a peep during the whole flight. A man in a suit picked up a dropped nuk in the breezeway.

And a funny thing happened at the security checkpoint. I am quite used to being stared at; having had a pacemaker since the age of two, I have needed to be hand-checked instead of going through the metal detector ever since I first walked through an airport. When I was little and being different really mattered, it bothered me. I really hated it. I mean, I really turned heads; a blonde little girl, in elementary school or middle school, being frisked at the airport. Wouldn't you stare? My sister used to tell me that I should make a joke out of it, and if people asked why I was being frisked, I would toss my hair and say, "because I'm worth it." Aaah, middle-school humor. Good one, Karen. Anyway, on our way through security this time around, I was feeling particularly annoyed by a woman who was gazing a little too obviously. But all of a sudden, my irritation subsided as I realized that for the first time, it wasn't me that was getting the attention. I had Oliver in my arms. She was smiling at him.

We boarded the plane to Cincinnati, along with three other passengers that happened to be going to the same wedding we were going to the next day. We had chatted a bit with them before the flight, and they became acquainted with Oliver. As we waited to taxi on the tarmack, Michael began to play with smiling Ollie, raising him above his head. Our new-found friends, apparently sitting a couple rows behind us, called out, "Hi, Oliver!" We waved his arm marionnette-style, and heard giggling behind us in response. Michael continued to lift Oliver over his head, over his head again, then WHACK! Oliver's head met the airplane ceiling so hard that the sound was surely heard for at least several rows.

Michael looked at me, eyes wide with panic, and held Oliver out to me as if he had just filled his pants, though I knew the intention was to rid himself of the evidence. "Grab the bottle!" I whispered frantically. "He's gonna scream! "

He didn't scream. He just looked really, really confused at our strange behavior and sucked on the bottle obediently. I could hardly keep it in his mouth, because now that I knew that Oliver was okay, I was in hysterics with laughter. "The thing, the thing, the thing is," I sputtered to Michael, wiping my eyes which were streaming with tears, "he had everyone's attention, so every person seated behind row 10..." I couldn't even finish. I was too amused with replaying in my head what every person behind our row saw and heard.

Michael, still looking terribly embarrassed but coming into a shade of amusement, said, "I think our son just went from an 'A' to an 'A-.'"

I was actually a little relieved. I have now twice knocked Oliver in the forehead with my elbow when trying to carry the dumb carseat like a handbag at the crook of my elbow. And once I smacked his head against hard plastic getting him out of his swing. Finally, my husband can share in the experiece of feeling soooo bad. I haven't yet pointed out to him yet that his incident in the plane didn't bring Ollie to an A-. It doesn't work like that. Because taking my bafoonery into account, we're more like at a B+.