New York (Upstate, not the City): Leaving on a Jet Plane

Helen Grace experienced her first plane ride and was a super star! We left Tuesday morning for a trip to upstate New York (and we must have explained a million times to our friends that we weren’t going to the city but to the state of New York- hence the name of the blog). We flew into Buffalo,we drove down to visit John’s college in Houghton, John visited clients in Rochester and Binghamton, we drove down to Sidney/Unadilla/Youngs area to visit John’s aunt and uncle, visited the sacred place that is Sunshine Mountain, drove to Long Point Camp on Seneca Lake to meet the whole Waldron family, celebrated Aunt Edie and Uncle Gene’s retirement from the Salvation Army, and flew out of Syracuse. Whew, just explaining all that makes me tired! Per Mapquest, I believe we drove just over 600 miles. We have quite the little road tripper on our hands (praise the Lord!). I am going to break our trip up into several blogs to give each part adequate attention and detail. Enjoy the journey with us!

On Tuesday morning, we showed up at the airport at 9 a.m. for a 10 a.m. flight to Detroit, only to learn it had been pushed back to 11:30. No biggie, we would still make our connecting flight to Buffalo. As we waited at the gate, the flight was pushed to 2:00 due to a mechanical issue. Now we have a problem. We high-tailed it to the Delta help desk and were rebooked on  a flight through Atlanta leaving Memphis at 11:45. By the time we sat down in our seats on the LAST ROW of the flight to Atlanta (with no window, I might add), Helen Grace was exhausted. She threw a minor fit as we waited for take off, but when we were delayed on the runway for 30 minutes (Atlanta was too crowded), she finally fell asleep. She slept right through the take-off, the hour-long flight, and the landing. Wow, that was an easy first plane ride!

We easily made our connection in Atlanta and were soon bound for Buffalo. This time though, Helen Grace wasn’t sleepy at all. Unfortunately, John and I were sitting on the outside seats of a three person row, but luckily, the guy next to us was the father of six and was as nice as could be. He really kept her entertained and didn’t mind her constant kicking at all.

Halfway through the flight, I started to notice a smell coming from my baby girl. John and I exchanged a silent look and tried to ignore it, but when our neighbor chuckled and said, “It’s not me!” I knew I had to do something about it. The flight attendants told me that I couldn’t change her in the galley area, so all I could do was figure out how to make it work in the bathroom. Worst. Experience. Ever. It would have been a little less traumatic if the bathroom weren’t trashed, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. With a squirmy, stinky baby in my arms, I cleaned it up as best I could, put the toilet lid down, covered it with my disposable changing pad, and tried to lay her down…but she was too long. Poor baby basically hung off the ledge and cried while I hurriedly got a new diaper on her. What a disaster. When we got back to our seats,  I covered us both in antibacterial hand soap.

When we finally landed in Buffalo, we made our way to our rental car- which was a minivan, by the way. (I have never thought that I would become a minivan supporter, but after a weekend of basically living out of it, I can definitely see the benefits of the ‘swagger wagon’!) We had arranged to rent an infant car seat from Enterprise- we’ve been keeping her rear-facing until her birthday- but the seat they handed us was a joke. None of the infant seats had bases, so all that held them in was the seat belt. Not going to work! We gave in and checked out the toddler forward-facing seats and finally found one with anchors that securely fastened into the seat. What an ordeal! We were frustrated that Helen Grace’s transition to a forward-facing seat came like this and not under our control, but she seemed happy about it. I really expected her to have this gloriously, awe-inspired reaction to seeing where we were driving, but she was still buckled into a car for hours so she wasn’t overjoyed. Unrealistic expectations on my part, I suppose!

Walking in the Memphis airport, trying to wear her out before our first flight Of course, she had to push her stroller around. This is the only picture I could manage with her and the first airplane. She could care less about the significance of the moment and preferred to gnaw on the water bottle. Here we go! There’s no turning back now.I’m a big girl! (She’s sitting in my seat before take-off- she sat in my lap during the flight.) She was really interested in the flight attendant. He let her play with his tags, so they became fast friends.Sleeping Beauty awakes…she’s so proud of herself for sleeping through the whole thing! Riding down the LONG escalators in Hotlanta Still walking…killing time in ATL. (Notice she can now walk with you while only holding one hand.) Her first ride in a front-facing car seat