Bella's first flight
As you may have noticed, we've been a bit absent. We're on our East Coast 2009 Meet the Bella Tour. I'll have tons of photos to share soon. A birth and babies and friends and family and tons of great stories I can't wait to share! But I felt bad neglecting my blog for two whole weeks, so I thought I'd mention our journey that renewed my hope for humanity.
We got to the airport with a fair amount of time to spare, and I'm no stranger to flying, and I had no intention of checking a bag so I packed very efficiently for the security lines and that went well. We were playing, so we missed the first call for the family boarding, which was just as well since another half hour on the plane was the last thing we needed.
I didn't know what I was going to do about breastfeeding a squirmy toddler in a middle seat. The poor young woman smushed into the window seat had Bella and me next to her, and a little 4 month old in front of her. She pretty much kept to herself the entire time. She was quite sweet though, and during the middle of the flight when I was catching a cat nap and Bella was wide awake, she played with her. She never once complained about Bella invading her space or kicking or dropping cheerios all over her luggage (whoops!).
The high school kid next to me was about eleven feet tall and spilling out the aisles and we were one big cozy tangle. Bella was tired and started to fuss when we took off and so I popped her on right as the boy looked over at me. He didn't even flinch. Could I have asked for better traveling companions? He just kept right on chatting and didn't mind for a moment that Bella was half on him while nursing. While Bella napped we shared cameras and photography and I told him what was outside the window (we flew right over my town, I would have liked to have just parachuted down to save some time) and it was one of the best flights I've had in a while.
We walked up and down the aisles, caused a few traffic jams as people cooed over her shoes and she tried to adopt every grandma on the plane. Unfortunately, we were the second to last seat in the plane and had a very short connection. By the time we got off, we had 20 minutes til our next plane took off on the farthest opposite corner of the airport.
With Bella and bag on my back and my luggage in tow, I literally ran through the airport. What a sight we must have been, harried mother running around with a baby giggling hysterically on her back. We took a wrong turn at some point and ended up outside of security, so we had to go back through the checkpoint.
I can't even say how many snafus we caused and dodged all at the same time. Apparently in Pennsylvania they want the baby in arms to have a boarding pass. What? They let us go with a few sighs but no ticket. We started waiting in a very long check line and I was pretty much in tears asking the first security guard if he could tell my plane I was on the way. He assured me in a most unsympathetic manner that he had no means to do so and I could only skip in line if the people in line let me.
I'm sorry, I'm all for democracy but how much more pathetic did I need to look begging to gyp in line? A sweet (female) guard offered to open up another x-ray machine for me and as it was warming up I heard last call for my plane. I'd never been this close to missing a flight before (though I have completely missed flights before), and I did not want to sit around an airport with a baby.
As we finished the security check (and did I mention no one asked me to take Bella off so they could scan my mei tai?) the nice guard told me to run and catch a car. When I thought my lungs would pop, I found one going the other direction. He asked his passenger if he minded turning back around, and to my immense relief he didn't mind. (hmm, should have thanked him. oops.)
When we got to my gate the doors were closed. I waited for the announcer at the next gate to finish boarding calls (while the rest of those passengers stared at me huffing and puffing...) and asked him if he could contact my plane. Luckily it was a small plane without a boarding tunnel, so he just whistled and hollered and sent me out onto the tarmac. Woot!! It was surreal, as I got closer and shouted, "is this the plane to Harrisburg?" Hah. Watch me get on the wrong plane. Indeed I was in the right place. The plane wasn't even full and the flight attendant ushered me on and moved some passengers to get me my own row. (They balked until they saw I had Bella on my back. People are so much more accommodating when you have a baby, haha.)
I laid my head back to catch my breath. We made it! (Thanks to 10 million awesome people.) Bella watched the world grow smaller out the window, and then I started nursing her to sleep. I was starting to relax and scowled at the ding donging in the cabin speakers. "Flight attendants prepare for landing." Wtf? Oh, right, it was only a fifteen minute flight. Well, at least we didn't miss it! Read more...
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