Anyway, this was Will's first trip on an airplane! He was very excited, and all in all, did very well. I'd be lying if I said Erin and I weren't at least a little nervous about how he would do in the plane, given his tendency to have issues when he isn't allowed to climb around wherever he pleases or make whatever noise he wants.
For several weeks, we've been telling him about how lucky he is to get to ride in an airplane, and excitedly pointing out airplanes in all his books and when we see them in the sky. Also, every morning Will and I watch cartoons, including his favorite: Little Einsteins. There's a character called "Rocket", which is a rocket, and the kids have to help him get revved up to blast off and fly really fast by patting their hands on their lap and waving their arms about and such. Will really likes to participate in helping Rocket. So when we would watch it I made several references to Will getting a chance to "go on a trip on his favorite rocket ship..." as the Little Einstein theme song goes, and Erin and I have been making sure he understood that he needs to help pat to blastoff.
So the time finally came for our trip in a rocket ship. Will started by helping mom pack things up.
We got to the airport plenty early to be prepared for possible security hassles of us taking a child with us - proving our paternity and all that - and to give Will a chance to eat something and look at and talk about the airplanes.
I should note that Will was something of a terror as we waited to get on our first plane. We got there a bit too early I think and he got very antsy - wanted to run around without holding our hands (which was out of the question) and was just generally wiggly, whiny, and nervous about all the people around. We finally got to board though and he was very excited again.
Both to and from Lincoln we had to take two planes with a layover in Chicago. So that's a total of four flights. Will had to sit on our laps, which was preferable so we could keep him in check. We had lots of juice - when he's drinking it it helps him to pop his ears to help with the cabin pressurization - also loads of animal crackers, and 6 boxes of secret weapons. Except for the end of the second flight, he had no problems with his ears - evidenced by his full diapers, he drank quite a bit of juice, and the sucking fingers helped too.
We made the mistake of letting him sit in his own seat as our plane was boarding for awhile. Then he got really mad when he had to give up his seat - hence the naughty phase of the trip: during the majority of the second flight (Chicago to Lincoln), Erin and I had to hold him down to stop him from trying to escape and stop him from kicking all the seats in front of us.
But the rest of the time he was generally a very good boy. We read lots of books, found as many balls as we could in the Skymall magazines, ate snacks, sang songs, watched SpongeBob on mom's computer, and helped our rocket ship blastoff by patting and waving our arms. Somehow, he was having so much fun on our trip to Lincoln that he didn't sleep at all (much to our dismay) until A.J. was driving us home after midnight (1:00 in his body). But he slept all curled up in my lap on the flight home last night (which was delayed THREE HOURS!) - it was very sweet.
Of the four flights, guess on how many Will pooped his pants? Yep, on three of the flights, he got really stinky shortly after takeoff and mashed his butt onto Erin's and my lap throughout the flight. Had it not been for the flight delay on our last flight, he would have been batting 1000, because he had a monster crap at about 5:00 - one which necessitated an emergency change in clothing - and our flight was supposed to leave at 5:10. Good thing we had three hours to get him cleaned up.
No comments:
Post a Comment