Okay, so now that I've had a week to rest and recuperate from my trip to Texas...I guess I can tell all ya'll (see, I even picked up some of the dialect. I'm just a "yeeha" and a "howdy" away from the real deal) about it. First let me say to my sister Liz, who will most likely read this, that I had a wonderful time while I was there!! The part before and after were a little crazy, but I wouldn't have missed it for the World.
Day 1:
wake up at 5 am..finish packing (I know, I know...I'm a procrastinator. Always have been always will be. What can I say, I like a thrill- or rather to stress half to death).
Wake Mikayla up at 6, get her ready..or try to get her ready. She didn't like waking up that early. I tried telling her that made two of us, but you just can't reason with the girl. My plan was to wake her up, keep her awake until our 9 am flight and then she would drink her bottle on take off, then drift peacefully off to sleep to the hum of the plane (of course I would never have to drug my child to fall asleep!-ha, riiiight.) So, between nervous glances at the clock as we sat in rush hour traffic, I tried diligently to keep her awake by playing peek-a-boo and tickling her and dancing...I'm sure I was a great source of entertainment not only Mikayla, but the other cars that were stopped in traffic along with us. We eventually got to the airport, got checked in, I went to the restroom- you know what they say about going the bathrooms on planes! Planes are bumpy and men aren't that accurate. And I changed her diaper right before we went through security with Joel standing guard over my luggage. It was difficult to maneuver through the security having to place everything on the conveyor belt (stroller, diaperbag, carseat, teddybear, blankets, my shoes and belt) one handed as I now held an extremely tired and cranky baby in the other. I stopped at a little shop to get water for the bottle and she soon became even more restless...then all heck broke lose and she was in full rebellion mode, screaming at the top of her lungs as I stood in the line to board, trying to look nonchalant as if I didn't know what everyone was looking at. You see, Southwest no longer does preboarding for infants...isn't that nice. She cried and fussed and refused to take her bottle for half of the flight, then fell asleep for the next hour and a half. I was happy, all-in-all, but I couldn't wait to hit the road and get to my sister's house. I had told her that I would meet her in baggage claim. Well...this airport happened to be ghe-to! As soon as I got off the one grimy elevator they had I walked straight into the dump that was the "baggage claim". After retrieving my luggage, I was glad to be getting out of there....if only I could spot my sister. Well, Mikayla was at this point pretty ticked off at the world and wanted to run around like crazy, and me being the germ-a-phobe I am, tried to run after her to make sure she didn't touch anything (or anyone) while trying to keep my baggage in clear view-I couldn't afford to lose anything in them, and I'm sure I saw a few devious glances in their direction. I called my sister to see where she might be..perhaps she got lost in this vast airport of one terminal, but the more likely scenario was that she was just moving slowly (just having had a c-section a few days prior). I called her and she told me they were running a little behind and they would be there in about a half an hour. I sighed and continued to run after her, germ-x in hand. Thirty minutes later I called again, to see if I needed to wait outside...she told me that would be a good idea...but I'd need to wait another 30 minutes. By this point I had exhausted all my arsenal of toys and food, so I just continued to chase her around and play until I had to figure out some way to take all of my junk out to the curb. With the help of a nice stranger I had made it outside. She came 5 or so minutes later and we started on our 3 hour-well, more like 4 after stopping to eat, journey back to her house. I give my sister and her family a lot of credit for making the trip out there. It couldn't have been very comfortable to say the least. And all in all, Mikayla did very well for such a long trip.
hehe...now time for the trip home..fun, fun. But I'm too tired to write about it now, so I'll wait until another day.
