Home Again Friday

We left Cape Cod on Monday afternoon, spent the night in Boston and flew to Seattle Tuesday morning where we stayed till Thursday evening, catching an 8:00 flight home to Anchorage.

Blissfully, both kids slept for the entire three and a half hour flight north.

While we waited for take-off, an over-tired Olive fussed in my lap, squirming and crying. No neck-cringing screams, but loud enough cries for our closest flying companions to glance nervously in our direction.

My bags of earplugs and dark chocolate Hershey kisses lay in my backpack by Nick's feet.

(All the Dove chocolate squares long-gone from my frequent forages into the bags on our visit East.)

I considered handing out the snack bags but knew Olive was ready to conk and most likely would once the engines roared. And besides I wasn't quite sure how to reach down and pull them out while trying to calm her as Nick was busy distracting Elias from reaching over to squeeze his sister.

"Put a cork in it," said the man who sat diagonally behind me in an aisle seat, the guy with the skull bandanna, Willie Nelson braids, and a wad of Skoal in his lower lip, the same guy who later scared Olive awake with his hacker cough.

I couldn't tell by his tone if he was joking or serious-- but regardless I decided against handing out my consolation prizes I'd packed for the unlucky passengers sandwiched around a screaming child.

("I'm sorry but, chocolate?")

Instead I gave him one of my mean looks, the same one I gave to the security guy who chastised me when Elias stumbled walking through the scanner without his canes and grabbed onto the side.

"He can't hold onto the side," he said, the way an older sibling may tell a baby sister: You can't eat sand. All pompous with a head wag.

"He can't really walk without his canes," I shot back.

(Shhhh, don't tell him about my previous post.)

After we grabbed our backpacks, laptop, wallets and Elias's canes from the conveyor belt, put back on our shoes, and walked through the terminal, I found myself hating everyone who stared at Elias as his canes announced his approach with their click-clacking on the tile, his anxious little body eager to find gate C16.

And yet not even twenty minutes later, I caught myself staring at a soft-looking man decked out in Laker's gear, who called across the terminal in a voice that wasn't quite right.

Hypocrite, I thought.

At the end of our flight when the braided man behind me leaned forward to say, "She flew beautifully, most babies have a hard time because they can't clear their ears but she did so great," and he cooed at Olive, I found myself smiling back at him, all sugar and warmth.

And now I sit here at my own kitchen table, both relieved and overwhelmed to be home, wanting to be everywhere and nowhere at once-- closer to friends and family, alone in the woods--feeling righteous and humbled and oh so human, like each of us, every last one.

Happy friday.

Comments

[greta]

Your second-to-last paragraph describes to a tee my strange emotional state every time I come home to Colorado from visiting family back East. And I am so glad Willy Nelson was kind in the end b/c sometimes I want to tell the folks who don't seem to empathize with parents flying with babies that they were once babies too. Fortunately I seem to run into more empathetic folks than not. On my way to Connecticut with Luke the man at security told me he had to "test" my backpack due to unauthorized substances: vanilla yogurt, apple juice and a jar of baby food. He asked me, "What is the purpose of these items?" I responded, "To feed my baby on the plane" [where there isn't a whole lot to feed a baby without most teeth]. I was about to give him an attitude, but then he smiled and waved me on. That was all after my boarding passes slipped out of my hands while I pulled off the baby's shoes and my own and wresteled the watch off my wrist and put a million and one things in the stupid tray, all one-handed with a baby boy who was doing his best to squirm free from me. Another kind stranger picked up all the papers that flew out of my hand in the zigzag line, including my drivers license, and handed them back to me. Christy, throwing canes into that mix? Kudos!

[fleming]

welcome home. there was so much in that post and all of it describing only a snippet of a day. The range of human emotions is an awesome thing huh?

[niksmom]

Sometimes I think the people around us are the hardest part of traveling with children! LOL

Glad you made it home and the children did so well; bodes well for many adventures yet to come!