Tuesday afternoon I drove to Atlanta with Noah and Isaac. My mother-in-law and niece met us near the airport. Marilyn took Noah with her to stay the week, and Chelsea came with me to help with Isaac at the airport. MAN AM I GLAD SHE CAME!!!! Traveling with a toddler is hard. Traveling with a whole bunch of stuff is hard. But traveling with a toddler AND a whole bunch of stuff is REALLY HARD!!!!! We parked the car and walked forever to get to Delta's ticket counter. I couldn't do self check in because I was traveling with a baby, they needed his name. So we waited in line forever because there were only three agents working the ticket counter (sounds like Wal-Mart!). It was finally our turn and Chelsea hoisted my huge suitcase onto the scales. 62 pounds. I'm only allowed 50. Wonderful. I'm charged $115.00 to check one bag. Yikes!!!! Bo asked me to bring his bibles and movies, and their combined weight were the extra twelve pounds. When I heard the amount I groaned but then asked myself "how can I be upset about shipping bibles?" I decided to not stress over it, Bo needed them, and it's worth $100 because he's discipling some of the guys in his platoon. Next hurdle, security. This was a big one. We took up the whole belt with our shoes, jackets, diaper bag, toy frog, stroller, Bo's laptop, and Isaac's car seat. He had to come out of the stroller, have his jacket and shoes taken off, and be carried through the metal detector. There's no way I could have managed all this by myself. We proceeded to the train which took us to my concourse.
Who are all these people MaMa?
Chelsea my hero
Riding the subway?
We made it to the concourse and had to walk all the way to the end to my gate. I'm flying on a small commuter jet and it doesn't get to hang out with the big boys. Doesn't even get it's own jetway, everyone has to walk to the plane on the runway. I sat down and called Joshua to let him know I'm at the airport and Chelsea took Isaac to get us some Starbucks. No sooner was she back with the coffee than the agent asked me to board (because I've got a baby and a ton of stuff to stash!). I took Isaac from Chelsea to put him in the stroller and the agent said "I'm sorry ma'am, you'll have to carry him". I pulled him back out of the stroller and he threw up. I cleaned him up real fast and Chelsea and I try to figure out how I am going to manage everything on my own. I asked the gate agent for assistance but there was no one to help me. Chelsea isn't allowed past the gate either. So I fold up the stroller and put it over my shoulder (it has a shoulder strap, I love this stroller!), grab Isaac in one arm, the car seat in the other, and just then a fellow air traveler noticed I'd run out of arms and offered to help me (Heather, this was when you were praying for me!). He carried Bo's laptop and Isaac's diaper bag and I carried everything else. We proceeded like pack mules down the stairs, outside the airport, around one plane, to our plane. I thanked the nice man and gate checked the stroller and car seat. Fortunately, I had an empty seat next to me so I had some room to handle Isaac. He wouldn't stay in the seat so I held him in my lap for an hour until he fell asleep. We landed in Oklahoma, I rented a car, and we headed for the hotel, which gave us a great rate and a great room, but they were out of cribs! I'd been holding this child for three hours, now I've got to hold him all night????? I ended up making a bed for Isaac on the floor and we crashed, exhausted, but anxious to see our man in the morning......
No comments:
Post a Comment