In preparation for this first big trip with the baby, I made a series of lists. Lists are the best; I'm all about them. I use the Stickies app on my phone and arrange my life by writing out each day of the week, then write what I hope to accomplish under each day. I actually started thinking about this trip several weeks out, and made a point to write "Start planning for trip!" for the Monday before the trip. Yes, that's right, I actually planned to plan. Part of that planning involved extremely detailed lists for myself and the baby. I started mentally keeping track of all the stuff we need for her each day, and created a beautiful list. I then checked it off contentedly to make sure I had all of those things packed in our bags.
On the day of the trip, I wake up bright and early (cross off "Wake up" from today's list) to double check that we have everything we need. As I change Skyla and begin her morning feeding, I tell myself what a great planner I am. I actually make a point to tell Skyla how lucky she is to have a mom who is such a good planner. How do you say "Good planner" in Italian I wonder, I better put it on a list -- after all, if I wanna teach this kid Italian I can't miss any opportunities. I then start to feed her and smile to myself about what a great mom I am. I think I'll even keep this beautiful packing list and put it in her baby book so some day we can look at it in awe.
Luckily the flight isn't until 4:30, which gives us plenty of time to get ready and head out the door to be at the airport extra early. Tory does his annoying "Smooth" arrival hand motion, which he always does to remind me that he prefers getting to the airport five minutes before the plane takes off so you can walk into the airport and right onto the plane. No way Jose, this time we are getting there at least two hours early. As we drive up to San Francisco, my stomach reminds me that I was so busy planning, packing, and congratulating myself that I forgot to eat (I remember seeing "Eat burrito bowl" but that must have been on yesterday's list). We discuss possible options, none of which seem like they will help us get to the airport as early as I'd like. We eventually settle on TGI Fridays, because Tory swears it is right inside the airport gates, and in fact you don't even have to go through security to get to it. Sounds good to me!
"Don't worry, American Express will reimburse us for the cost of checking our bags." This is the rationale Tory gives me for checking as much luggage as possible once we get to the airport, and since I have insisted that we get there ridiculously early, the thought of lugging around all this shit along with our baby is not appealing. We go right to the curbside check-in and I busily fill out a bunch of name tags for all of our stuff. We say good-bye to our bags for a little while, ready to say hello to a nice cold beer at the TGI Fridays, which Tory has assured my rumbling stomach we will find the instant we walk into the airport. As soon as we get in, we walk around to find the restaurant, but quickly realize that not only is it in another terminal, but there is in fact NO food before security. It's cool, just one little hiccup.
One of the few things that makes traveling with an infant easier is that you get certain perks at the airport, like a special line to get through security. We take advantage of this option in San Francisco, and it makes the first major hurdle much easier. We breeze through security, the videos I watched from the TSA website in the back of my mind. Gee, you are so prepared says the voice in my head. This is gonna be a snap! We go right to our gate, and I proceed to the bathroom with all my breastpump stuff in my bag. I wait patiently for the handicapped stall, then get set up. I have to sort of hover over the toilet seat, which is already hard enough but the god-damn automatic flush keeps going off every time I move one inch. I have to try to remain absolutely still as the pump does its business because each time I have to adjust I get sprayed from behind. I am worried about the noise the pump makes but luckily there is a little kid that doesn't stop screaming for at least ten minutes, so the sound is drowned out. I'm so lucky to have such a quiet baby, I think to myself. It is a pretty successful pumping session, and as I wash my hands I look at myself in the mirror and do a little pat on the back in my head for being so prepared for this trip. We find a nice little restaurant and have lunch, complete with a frosty brew. I have to drink it pretty fast because we have to get to the gate to pre-board -- very exciting! -- so I am admittedly a little light-headed.
Fresh milk and all of our stuff in tow, we eagerly approach the gate. My whole life I've wanted to be one of those people who gets to board early because they have kids, and here is our first chance! We go right up to the agent and ask if we can board early with our infant. She takes one look at us and rudely says, "We haven't started pre-boarding yet. First class only." I look around and there is no one in the vicinity, so I wonder aloud why the hell this lady won't let us on. I tell Tory I'm gonna use the extra special blue carpeted line for extra special people just to spite her, but I chicken out. No less than fifteen seconds after we asked her if we could board, she gets on her little machine and announces that boarding has begun. She turns to us, almost surprised to see us, and tells us we can't board because we don't have the right tags on the carseat and stroller. Tory weakly points out the name tags I had slaved over, but she snaps, "Those are name tage, not gate tags." She sighs as she hands them to us, lecturing us to fill them out or we will never see the carseat or stroller ever again. I try to tell her that no one informed us about these special tags, but she has already forgotten about us because of course there is a long-ass line of people waiting to board -- that's right, board, not pre-board -- because she skipped that altogether.
We meander down the jetway to the plane, and I'm already pissed because by the time we finish filling out the precious gate tags there is already a line to get on the plane. Somehow in the commotion of taking Skyla out of the carseat and dropping her stuff outside the plane, Tory and I get separated. We are both already tired and frustrated at this point, so we start yelling at each other, but it's more of a stage whisper yell. Keep in mind that we've been separated and there are at least five people between us, but that doesn't stop us. "What are you doing?!" I whisper yell to him. "I can't hear what you're saying" he replies (or at least that's what it seems like he's saying as I try to read his lips.) "Why are you back there? Hurry up!" I whisper demand. He does his fake smile thing, that thing that drives me up the wall when we fight. He's telling me, "You're mad and so am I but I'm gonna smile to make everyone else think that I'm in control and you're a lunatic." "Put her stuff down and get up here!" I whisper. "I can't hear what you're saying," he says as he smiles. "Just hurry up!" I say in my best stage whisper scream. At this point several people are laughing at us, including an older woman in line behind me who has obviously traveled with children before, and then there's the flight attendants. One of them tries to coo a little bit in Skyla's face and tell me how beautiful she is. Yeah, yeah, whatever lady just help us figure out where to put the god-damn stroller. I try to crunch myself down over by the coffee machine to allow the people behind me to pass and wait for Mr. Smiley to finally join me on the plane.
We get to our seats and get the bottle ready to feed her. Dr. Solomon, her pediatrician, advised us to feed her on take-off and landing to help her in case the air pressure hurt her ears. Tory starts to feed her as soon as the plane makes the slightest noise in preparation for take-off, even though it is likely that we will have to taxi for a while. She eats the bottle in about three minutes, which pains me to no end because it wasn't exactly easy to get. She is finished with it well before we take off, and my palms start to sweat. I smile at the lady in the window seat, and curse myself for not being friendlier when we originally sat down. Hopefully she'll be cool if Skyla loses her shit. We begin to take off and hold hands, silently counting the seconds of silence and hoping they'll continue for as long as possible. We get all the way up into the air, the seatbelt sign is turned off, and we breathe a sigh of relief. We did it! We made it through security, got on the plane with plenty of time to spare, fed her, and she is relaxing. Maybe we can even get some sleep!
I recline my seat and close my eyes. Approximately thirty seconds later she starts to fuss. No problemo says Super Dad, I'll just put her in the Baby Bjorn and bounce her around. That works for maybe one minute but she starts to fuss louder. The lady behind Tory is obviously angry that someone would dare bring a baby on HER flight, and she starts to sigh and grunt loudly. Tory tries to quiet Skyla down, and the lady aggressively takes down her tray table to remind us that she is not ok with our baby's existence. Tory tries to soothe her with a pacifier, and of course she spits it right out and it falls on the floor. He can't bend down to pick it up, so he asks the male flight attendant (who up until this point had seemed very friendly and accommodating) if he can get it for us. He gives us his "This hurts me more than it hurts you" face and says he can't help us find it because it might bother the other passengers. "You only brought the one?" he asks, and the English teacher in me has to bite my lipe so I don't correct his grammar. A female flight attendant decides to tell us that when she used to travel with little ones she would bring ten or eleven pacifiers "just in case" and looks at us with pity instead of trying to help us find it. Tory eventually gets up and tries to kneel down to find it as he's holding Skyla in the Baby Bjorn, and you can imagine how much she liked that. He finally finds it way in the back of the plane and sits back down with her, but she is still not appeased. The lady behind us is not so quietly talking to her husband about how inconsiderate it was for us to bring a baby on a plane that she was on, and it takes all of my willpower not to turn around and give her a piece of my mind. It dawns on us that maybe Skyla's diaper is wet, since she is used to getting changed right before a feeding. I brace myself to rummage around underneath my seat to try to get all the necessary equipment, once again cursing Tory for not booking the flight earlier so that I could have a window seat and could elbow my neighbor (him) as much as I want without reproach. As I begin my descent it hits me. Oh holy Jesus. The diaper bag is in the suitcase that we just checked. As the panic sets in, Tory tries to reassure me that everything will be fine. I know now is not the time to remind him of how carefully I packed everything to ensure a completely perfect travel experience. I can tell he feels guilty but Skyla's butt is starting to stink really bad and the lady behind us has proceeded to punch Tory's chair, or at least that's what it seems like from how violently he gets shoved forward every five seconds. I imagine that I am on Project Runway and Tim Gunn is telling me that this is a "make it work moment," so I take her to the back of the plane and try to figure out a game plan. It is difficult to hold her, her blanket, and my purse, which has nothing in it but my wallet but I sure as shit don't want to ask the holier-than-thou flight attendants if they happen to keep diapers on board "just in case", because then everyone will know that we got on a four-hour flight without a single diaper. Since Skyla decided to time her meltdown for exactly the moment the pilot turned off the fasten seatbelt sign, there is a nice long line for the bathroom. Luckily she has stopped fussing so everyone is looking at her and ooohhhing and aahhhhing. The super cute outfit I had picked out for her for today isn't seeming like such a great idea any more; it is an embroidered pink and white top with matching shorts. I decided on this one because it is by far her most sophisticated ensemble, and let's face it, we don't get out much. It is impossible to get the shirt to cover her belly because she is so squirmy, and the germ-o-phobe in me sees all the hands around me just itching to reach out and grab her. I think I see a few ladies giving me dirty looks and my fears are confirmed. A few nice women take pity on me and say, "Oh enjoy it, it goes by so fast!" I smile and kiss her, trying to remind myself that some day I will indeed miss this. When it is FINALLY our turn, because believe it or not no one offered to let us cut in front of them, this psycho lady in front of me turns around and says, "I'll hold your baby for you while you go to the bathroom, if you want." Yeah right! I don't care if we're currently in the definition of a contained environment, you're not touching her, you nutcase. "Oh actually I need to change her," I reply, amazed that this lady can't smell the turd emanating from her diaper. The moment of truth: we get inside the tiny bathroom. I look around and find the changing table, then plop her down so I can get my MacGyver on. I open her diaper, crossing my fingers that there has not been a "poo-nami" and thank the lord, the explosion has been contained. I scan the various items they offer travelers, and pounce on the holy grail: jumbo maxi pads! Yippee! I clean her up the best I can considering I don't have any baby wipes, and insert the huge maxi pad into her extremely full diaper. This creates such a monstrous bulge that her super cute pink and white shorts barely fit over it, but I finally get them back on. I emerge from the bathroom triumphant! I expect the entire plane to erupt in enthusiastic applause, but then I realize that they have no idea what I just had to do. I remind myself what I used to tell my student teachers, that no one knows you've made a mistake unless you make it obvious; they can't read the lesson plan so they can't really tell if things go awry. I look down at my beautiful baby girl and she smiles up at me, perfectly content wearing her first maxi pad and oblivious that her mom, the self-proclaimed super-planner, just improvised her way out of a nightmare situation.
We got to celebrate Halloween twice, which was pretty cool. First, we went to Gill's awesome party up in the Los Gatos hills. The decorations were out of control, and there were lots of great costumes and of course delicious food. They literally covered all the walls with wallpaper that made it look like we were in an old castle, and every other surface was pretty much decorated too. You can't tell from the photos, but the skeletons at the end actually moved!
