You Can Stop Holding Your Breath

We're back safe and sound, from a whirlwind trip to TX to visit with my grandparents, parents and extended relatives. The four days were full of airplane rides, car rides, warm, humid weather, fried chicken, watermelon, sweet tea, inflatable outdoor pools, and lots of visiting, visiting, visiting. For the most part, it was fabulous.

Again, for the most part, the kiddo busied himself with stickers, watching PBS videos on my Zune, nursing, reading books, and generally being quite pleasant.

Except. (And its a BIG "except.")

The flight there was sort of completely, totally awful. We had a horrible night the night before we left so I was running on about 4 hours of sleep. Never a good thing, even on the least demanding of days. We made it to the airport fine, to the plane with no problem, and then ALL BLOODY HELL BROKE LOOSE. There was screaming, crying, thrashing...it was really quite funny, now that I look back at it but at the time all I could think was " DEAR GOD PLEASE LET THIS FLIGHT BE OVER AND PLEASE LET ME NEVER EVER EVER SEE ANY OF THESE POOR SOULS AGAIN OR I WILL DIE OF SHAME."

Looking back, I think it was a combination of being too tired, getting a tooth and probably ear pressure, but my child was INCONSOLABLE. Would NOT nurse/eat/sleep/play/read books/watch videos...nothing. Finally, he'd been crying so long and was so upset that he started gagging and throwing up. On the airplane. Oy Vey. He was covered in puke, I was covered in puke, it stunk to high heaven and I only had back up clothes for him. Nice.

And so, we showed up in Dallas, covered in vomit and completely depleted of the sparse energy stores we had started the day with.


The good news is, that for whatever reason, it was smooth sailing from there. We slept like we were dead that night and the kid was a completely different child the next day. Our flight home was uneventful, and dare I say even pleasant? probably thanks to the small dose of Tylenol I provided to the little nut and us both being considerably better rested. I'm not one to randomly drug my child, but I felt justified as my nerves could not handle another hell flight.

I'll post more about the trip, including the reason for it (Cemetary Day) sometime soon. It's a pretty fascinating tradition and I learned a lot about my heritage and East Texas this weekend that I'd like to share. Plus I have photos if I ever have time to upload them. (The 2 in this post were taken with my phone.)