Traveling with a Baby

Or "My own personal hell."

This was the third time that I have traveled with Bug on a plane. The last time we flew to the East Coast it was out of Seattle, and also a red eye. I think that the reason(s) that it went so well was that 1. It was overnight and 2. Bug just wanted to be snuggled up next to me.

This time it was night also, which you'd "think" would pay into our favor. WRONG. Bug went down Tuesday night like normal. While we were finishing packing (or starting, I'm not discussing it) we lost power. That was not a good omen for the rest of the day.

When we woke Bug up at 10 pm to leave for the airport he started to scream (and scream, and scream.) We put him in his car seat, and pulled out of the garage. He eventually calmed down. We tried a bottle, changed his diaper (all before we left.) I blamed the damn teeth. We had gone to the doctors earlier in the day because he just didn't seem himself. He has two coming in at the same time. LUCKY KID.

Once we got on the road it was about 30 minutes to the airport. Bug, thankfully, fell back asleep and I hopped that the rest of the trip would be smooth.

Wrong. (BUT, it could always be worse.)

We got to the airport and put Bug and his car seat on the airport stroller (thing that turns your car seat into a stroller.) I thought, "Okay. He's still asleep. There is hope." WRONG. Right after we checked in, Bug woke up. Not only did he wake up, he woke up screaming. I ended picking him up, and his dad wheeled his carrier AND all of our stuff. We looked like such a hot mess, that the TSA sent us our own personal guy to help us go through security.

Once we got to the gate, we let Bug crawl around since he was WIDE AWAKE. Once we got on the plane, Bug was GRABBING EVERYTHING. The guy in front of us, the guy next to us, EVERYTHING. I offered earplugs (and in reality I should have offered liquor.) He started crying, and would.not.stop. The little guy was SO TIRED. His dad tried holding him, I tried holding him. NOTHING. Finally after about two hours in the air (so around 3:30 am) Bug FINALLY fell asleep, across his dad and me. We got about an hour of sleep.

Once we got to Seattle we grabbed breakfast and I wrestled Bug for a diaper change. Bug spent our layover flirting with everyone and managed to cut his finger.

By some miracle, we got into Business Class (whatever the leg room rows are called) and there was an empty seat in our row. It was SO MUCH BETTER. He was still into everything, but liked looking out the window. He fell asleep before we were even in the air, and I got to enjoy the beauty of the Pacific Northwest and the sunrise over Mt. Rainer.

When we landed in Chicago, about 3 minutes after getting off the plane, Bug had the most epic of blow outs. POOP EVERYWHERE! I was so thankful that he decided to do that off the plane, because you could smell it EVERYWHERE.

The last flight wasn't too bad. It was only an hour (but they couldn't get the engine started, but made sure to tell us to not worry.) We gave Bug some more Tylenol, and he seemed pretty content.

Once we made it to Pittsburgh we had a 3 hour drive home. At this point Bug had had it. At one point even Tylenol wouldn't cut it. He just started screaming (it's okay buddy, I wanted to scream too.) My husband pulled off of the interstate, and into a parking lot of a farm store.

About 2 minutes after pulling into the parking lot, the state cops showed up. The cop pulled up to our window and asked us what we were doing. During this time, Bug was still screaming. The cop asked what we were doing, and over the screams my husband said, "teething baby." The cop wished us luck and drove off. I told my husband he was probably afraid we'd ask to turn him in. (No internet, we would never turn him in.)

Overall, LONGEST TRIP EVER. I'm thinking of driving back to Alaska. It sounds less torturous.

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