Saturday, August 22, 2009

Meet Me in St. Louis: The Journey

Hendrick took his first plane trip to visit his family in St. Louis this August. It was the perfect opportunity for me to employ one of my lesser advertised skills - worrying. I wanted the trip to be as perfect as possible so that meant weeks of planning and trying to think of every possible scenario we may encounter in our journey. We needed enough outfits in case there was an emergency change needed, diapers, wipes, toys that would entertain Hendrick but not annoy those around us on the plane, blanket to lay down in the airport to let him stretch out before being held for 3.5 hours, etc. I will spare you all of the details that I obsessed over. What ever happened to the days where it was just "over the river and through the woods" to grandmother's house?

To make a long journey short. It went just fine. Getting through the SF airport was a breeze as it was very family friendly. We picked seats at the back of the plane so that we would disturb as few people as possible. But, despite our best efforts to look friendly we got a few sidelong glances as we settled in. I just smiled at as many people as possible and quietly hoped Hendrick wouldn't scream on the flight. (I love his loud, clear voice but I am his mom and wired to do so.)

Three and half hours later we landed in St. Louis. Hendrick slept for a grand total of 20 minutes during the flight and made lots of friends with the people around us. There was no screaming and although I was exhausted by the end of it, I feel that the plane ride was a success. After getting in our rental car and figuring out how to install the new car seat we brought with us, (note to readers: Don't bring a car seat you have never installed on a trip and try to figure it out at tail end of your journey. It is not fun.) we were comfortably at Grandma and Grandpa's house by 9:00pm. Hendrick had a bath to wash off as much of the various airport bathroom changing table experiences as possible and asleep by 10:00pm.

Note: There are no photos from this part of the trip to St. Louis. My focus was on keeping Hendrick entertained, fed, clean, and dry.

2 comments:

  1. What, you can't change a diaper and snap photos at the same time? Psh. :P How would you deal with the car seat other than you did? Do rental companies rent car seats too? Sounds like you may not be able to avoid the nuisance. (?)

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  2. Rental companies do rent car seats but we brought H's new car seat that he will be moving into shortly because he has outgrown his infant car seat. Who knew we would have such a tall baby?

    So, we brought our own but we had never used it before St. Louis. If there had been a free seat between us on the plane (a pipe dream, I know) then we could have used the new car seat on the airplane and not have to hold H the whole time. But, the plane was full so H just got to try out his new seat in St. Louis. The thing is super posh. It is like a small armchair.

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