Sunday, May 29, 2011

A physiology lesson

Weird title for a blog about our trip yesterday, right?  Oh no, totally relevant and I will explain everything.  So this is how the day went...

5:30am - Dave and I wake up and take turns getting ready.  In a perfect world, we'd wake Ian up at 6:45, get him dressed and in his carseat before he even fully work up, and hit the road at 7, with a pitstop at Sonic on the way.   In reality, Ian woke up at 6:15.  We gave him the rest of the blueberries in the fridge to tide him over.  Again, the theory was that eating in the car would kill some of the 2 hour drive and then with a full belly, he'd fall asleep.

7:15am - get to Sonic, order breakfast.  7:30 - on the interstate.  Did Ian eat the french toast sticks, the ONLY reason we specifically went to Sonic?  NO!  He ate the tater tots that came with my combo.  Oh well.  Can't wait for him to be able to just tell us what he wants - it sure would save money.  Anyway, he fell asleep 20 minutes before we got to the airport.

9:20 - get to KCI, find parking, get on shuttle to terminal.  Feeling confident - we can do this!  It won't be that bad!  Millions of people fly with small children - we can too!  We check in and I told the nice, helpful checker-inner that we have an infant in arms.  She goes through our info and ask us if the gun is in our luggage.  We look at her like she's lost her mind.  She says "didn't you say you were armed?"  Um, not exactly, but some of Ian's diapers could be used as WMD.  Had a good laugh and he hands us our boarding passes.  Thank GOD I looked at them, because she had checked our luggage to La Guardia but we only had boarding passes to get to Milwaukee.  Got that straightened out and we were not having to spend the week in Wisconsin, though I do love cheese.

Wait for flight, keep Ian occupied with walking him from one end of the terminal section to the other.  Let him climb on unoccupied seats.  Stare out the window.  Buy a grapes and cheese snack and a milk for the plane.  Finally, time to board!  The 6lbs of trail mix was nixed in favor of the grapes and cheese.  Big hit!  He munched his way through the hour flight.  Taking his beloved baba was a smart decision too - he wasn't bothered at all during takeoff and landing because he was so thrilled that I was letting him have unlimited access to his favorite drink in his favorite drinking vessel.  iPad games ignored, but flipping the screen back and forth for 20 minutes?  Total entertainment.

Get to Milwaukee, change diaper, find lunch.  Mostly for Dave and I, since our little chowhound had pretty much eaten for an entire hour.  We went to Johnny Rockets and it was the worst JR that I've ever been to.  Oh well, it's in an airport - they have a captive audience.  Back to terminal, and whereas before there had been no one, there were now 76 million people that we were going to have to share a plane with for 2 hours.  Oh goody.  Thankfully, we went to a gate that had no one in it and were able to let him play until it was time to board.  Also thankfully, all the grapes, cheese, and tots exited BEFORE we got on the plane.  Have I mentioned that I love my diaper-demon of a husband?  That diaper was so bad it left a vapor trail as he carried Ian to the bathroom.

I should mention at this point that when we first walked past the 76 million waiting to board, there was a guy playing a ukulele.  As time went on, that progressed into him playing his ukulele and another guy pulling out a guitar and singing.  At the gate.  Also, another flight landed and 3 women of questionable fashion sense (5 inch heels, skintight jeans, sunglasses in the Milwaukee airport) walked past us and all stopped to tell us how cute Ian is.  Oh goody - my son attracts hookers.  At least they were nice hookers, right?  We bought another milk for the plane.

We board the completely full plane.  It's warm.  This is gonna be fun.  Ian is exhausted because so far, all he's had is a 20 minute nap.  It's 2pm now.  Praying that he'd go to sleep, I gave him his baba for takeoff.  The plane has direct TV for $6.  Credit card swiped without hesitation.  Ian drinks his milk, watches a little TV and then wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, falls asleep!  Woo hoo!!  Visions of a peaceful hour and a half remainder of the flight dance in my head.  But, after about 45 minutes, I screwed up.  I had to adjust him one too many times.  But my legs were going numb and my back was killing me because we were in the row in front of the exit row - so they didn't recline and I was slumping, trying to recreate the human recliner.  Oh well.  More baba, some puffs, and TV actually made the rest of the flight amazingly good.  And then, in the last 10 minutes or so, Dave uttered those fateful words...does he feel wet to you?

Oh no.  At first I said no.  Dave showed me the wet spot on his jeans.  I felt around and realized that he had sprung a leak in the vicinity of his left buttcheek.  But hey, we're landing, right?  We made plans with military precision - Dave would take Ian and the diaper bag and find a bathroom.  I would take the rest of our bags, get the stroller from gate-check, and we would rendezvous at carousel 2 to get luggage. Ok, we can do this - we're so close.  And then...the pilot stopped 20 feet short of the gate, so we had to be towed.  Then they had to adjust the jetbridge 3 times.  All of this adding up to an additional 20 minutes on the plane with a wet spot spreading over the back of Ian's jeans, my jeans getting wetter by the second and some guy in the back who thought screaming "let us off the plane" would hurry things up.  Finally, realizing that Ian's diaper was about to burst with the force of the Hoover Dam, he asked the guy next to him to stand up so that we could change him.  The guy was really nice and jumped up, and we changed Ian on the plane, in the seat.  We didn't put his wet jeans on, so our son had to cruise through La Guardia pantsless.  At least he's 1 and this is still socially acceptable, although I could hear his thoughts alternating between "I don't know where we are, but if I don't have to wear pants while I'm here, cool" and "Oh geez, mom, I can't impress the NY ladies when I'm in a t-shirt and diaper!"  Dave wanted me to hand the diaper to the flight crew and thank them for their landing ability, but I refrained.  Sean picked us up and the drive to their house was uneventful, thankfully.  Welcome to NY!!

Oh yeah, that physiology lesson?  Liquid in = liquid out.  Our son's kidneys work.  We're thinking overnite diapers for the flight back.

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