The Plane

Sooooo

Ya that plan of mine did not really go as planned, which of course I figured would be the case.  We left Bowling Green around 6 pm which is about the only thing that followed my "Plan".  Zoë did sleep about 2 of the 3 and a half hour drive to Derek's parents in Dalton Georgia.  Once there she would not go back to sleep and the only thing that would keep her from crying was watching videos on my phone.  Finally she fell asleep about 3 am and then woke up about 5 am.  I got her back to sleep about 7 am just in time for me to have an anxiety attack.  I took a shower, composed myself then tried to figure out if it was best to let her sleep or wake her up so she could nap later before the flight.  Finally decided to wake her up about 9:30 am.  She was happy as could be and had Aunt Misha and Uncle Stephen to play with.  She slept about an hour or a little more on the drive down to Atlanta.

We got through the airport fast and got some food, which Z ate a lot of.  She had a blast wiggling while she walked around our gate.  Once we loaded on the plane she had fun waving to the guys on the tarmac then got embarrassed and turned away when one waved back.  She was so hyper I could barely hang onto her while she flipped and flopped around.  She has become very clingy to me so she wouldn't let anyone else hold her for very long.  The Cheerios necklace lasted for a little bit mostly she would try and feed the photo of Blu in the little photo album I made her.  All the apps and videos I downloaded on my phone were useless for the most part.  One of the apps "Peekaboo Barn" did last for a little bit.  The one thing that took her attention the longest was stickers, she would stick them on her face, my face and her shirt.  Some of the toys she played with, but mostly she literally just flipped and flopped around while babbling.  When we started to descend she had fun looking out the window trying to find Grandma and Grandpa's house.  When we touched down she said "Weeeee Weeeee" and made her Wow That's Cool face.  Sadly we arrived 15 minutes early which for some reason meant sitting on the tarmac in the plane for an extra 30 minutes.  She spent that time playing peekaboo with the young girl sitting behind me.  When we made it to baggage claim something happened to our entire flights bags and it took them an hour to deliver them.  This is when Z started to get pretty pissed, how could you blame her I was super pissed.  She was in the Ergo on my back leaning back trying to get out.  It was funny our whole flight was stomping around and rumors kept starting "Ya I heard they got delivered down on 4" "They didn't get them off the flight before it left."  We did get our bags and did not get a reason for the delay.  I really thought Z would get extra mad when I took her straight out of the Ergo to get strapped into a car seat, but the opposite happened she was laughing and chatting up a storm for Grandma.

Talking to Blu

We had a late flight home, arriving in Atlanta at 11 pm.  Zoë was a world calmer on this flight.  And the bonus was the flight was only half full so Z and I had a row all to ourselves at the end.  Derek sat with us the first half of the flight and Z sat and watched Calliou and Spongebob for a while.  Then she played with her toys for a while.  I got her two new books while in Phoenix, and she loved them.  I read them a few times each.  Of course we played with stickers again.  I wish they would have turned the lights in the cabin off sooner because as soon as they did she started to fall asleep about the last hour of the flight.  She slept and stayed asleep until these bitches on the tram to baggage claim started yelling, then the tram stopped for a couple minutes.  I got glares from the other people on the tram for a screaming child located on my back.  She calmed down and was fine going through the rest of the airport, then fell back to sleep once we started driving.  She did pretty good that night and slept in until about 10 am.

She did great traveling and I am glad as she will be flying a minimum of once a year for many years to come.  I may kick myself for saying this but I really feel like this age until about 2.5 would be the most difficult to fly with.  When we flew last year and she was 4 months old it was really easy and she slept or nursed most of the flight.