Ah, traveling with an infant

I wrote half this post two weeks ago, thought I'd go ahead and finish it.

I was not at all concerned about traveling with an infant when I made my reservation. I always under-pack. Whereas most people are afraid they are going to forget something they need, I am usually afraid of carrying something I might not need. I’m usually also afraid of getting to the airport too early. If I can walk up to the gate as they are boarding my section, I consider the venture a success. Things were a bit different this time.

I did manage to pack pretty lightly. I had a baby, a bjorn, a diaper bag, and a rolling carry-on bag. The de-bjorning and re-bjorning to get through security was a bit tricky. Everybody’s advice before the trip was to nurse through take-off and landing and to bring a change of clothes for myself. Many people told me to bring a change of shirt for myself because apparently blow-outs are very common . My baby doesn’t poop though, so that was not a problem.

The journey to DC was fairly uneventful. Security was predictably difficult but people were uber understanding and several let me cut and lifted and pushed my bags without even asking. We had a 30 minute delay once we got on the plane, but Eli thought that would just be an awesome time to take a nap. He thought most of the flight was an awesome time to take a nap in fact. My cheapness led me to choose a flight into one of the less convenient airports. We took a bus to a train to get into the city and went straight to happy hour to meet up with friends. Though Eli has been to bars before, this was his first happy hour experience and he didn't totally catch on to the "happy" part.

I volunteered Megan and I to get the wine for Molly's party. A task that I thought would take about 2 hours. Between stopping to feed us, feed the babies, and a series of other seemingly minor tasks the outing lasted more like 4 or 5 hours. Oops! Oh, and Eli was pretty much just pissed off throughout because I was just not managing to get him his naps and eatings at the right times. I was used to the delays that a baby causes. Much like we were surprised to find out that having two dogs is actually twice the work of having one dog, I was surprised to find that two babies meant twice the delays of one baby. Who knew? The image of Megan and I trekking around DC with babies strapped to our chests, umbrellas, and heavy shopping bags will stay with me for quite some time though.

The shower and bachelorette party were a huge success. We hosted the shower in our hotel room. Everybody fit, the babies obliged, games were played, many bottles of wine were consumed, and it was hard to get people out of the room and onto the bar for the next segment of the night. Two friends were kind enough to babysit because nothing makes a bachelorette party more lame than when two of the hostesses bring their babies to the bars.

Some really awesome friends managed to borrow a car seat so that they could drive Eli and I to the airport on Sunday. Eli slept most of the way there. Things were looking good. And then. I got to the airport check-in counter. The nice man there was unable to find my ticket with my ID. He asked for my itinerary thingy, and it was then that he pointed out my ticket back to Chicago was for the day before. Straight out of an anxiety dream. I just stood there in disbelief. What? No. What? There, written clear as day on my itinerary it said Saturday. Massive fail. He said there were only two more flights to Chicago that night and they both said they were oversold. He got me on standby and told me that if I did not get on one of those tonight he would see me in the morning as he would be the one working then too. I told him I sincerely hoped I would not see him tomorrow. He took pity on me and waived the fee because Southwest is nice. In a state of shock I sort of ran through security too frazzled to figure out if I had a lot or little time to get to the gate. Eli started screaming as if on cue and the airport lady let us go ahead to the front of the line. I called Kenny on the verge of tears and told him we might not make it home that night. I got to the gate and realized we had almost two hours until our first chance at a flight. Eli stepped up and decided to be in an excellent mood while we waited. He ate, he slept, he made adorable sounds. Predictably, we did not make it onto the first flight. I called Molly and started figuring out how I'd get to her house and get to the airport the next morning. When they began boarding for the second flight I got cautiously optimistic when he described the flight as "full" and not "completely full" as he had the previous flight. I changed Eli's diaper and packed us up for the 3rd or 4th time that evening. We headed to the ticket counter and Eli growled and grunted (but in a happy way) as we waited for the guy to figure out if we could get on. He handed me a boarding pass, and I nearly jumped over the counter to kiss him. I couldn't stop smiling as I boarded, and was not at all unhappy to get one of the few remaining seats which was of course a middle seat. Eli rested his feet on the nice man to our left for the majority of the flight. He only screamed during the descent--probably because his little ears hurt.

After we landed a lady in the row behind asked if she could help by holding the baby while I gathered our things. I gladly handed Eli over to the stranger because I am an awesome mom like that. She did assure me she didn't have a cold or anything. It's just really hard to safely pack up a diaper bag and put on a Bjorn while holding a baby.

Kenny picked us up at the airport. He made me drive home because he missed his little man and wanted to sit in the back seat with him.

20 weeks and our return to DC

I do think the headless belly picture are a little creepy, but there are reasons. We usually take these in the morning for it is otherwise nearly impossible to catch me before I change into pajamas when I get home from work. They're headless because the time when Kenny can take my picture before going to work is the time when my hair is still wet and I have no makeup on. In other news, this shirt is from my mother-in-law. I can't explain why, but it makes me feel like a beautiful catepillar.

This has been the week of the being run down—hence, my failing to post until today. Belly continues to grow. I think my body is just wimping out about moving the extra blood through the system and carrying the extra belly in front. I’ve been going to bed at 9 or 9:30---getting a hefty 9 to 9.5 hours of sleep—and still stumbling around like I was up all night. I dropped a mug of hot cocoa the other day because I think I fell asleep while filling it up.

Enough complaining though. I am officially at the stage where strangers on the street comment on my belly. It’s amazing how much your belly can grow without people thinking you look pregnant. I guess we all give each other lots of allowances to just be fat.

While we were in DC 3 strangers, in one day, commented on the belly. One older guy who had just finished playing tennis asked me if it was my first and urged us to wait and be surprised about the baby’s sex. One cocktail waitress looked at me and assured me that they had non-alcoholic drinks too. One bouncer scolded Kenny for his role in the matter and what he had gotten himself into. Hmm, funny how two of those exchanges happened at bars.

Speaking of DC, I never did a lovely post I had planned to do about it. Being in DC was great. It’s very strange to go on vacation to a place that feels more like home than where you live. I’m still working on bonding with Chicago and am sure I will one day feel the same for it that I feel for DC. DC is just so easy to love because it’s small in size but big in city-ness. In DC, I was never lost. I knew where places where and had favorite places. I took a nap in Dupont Circle. I could walk between neighborhoods in no time. We stayed with our friends Kate and Kyle. They threw us a BBQ so that we could get together with all of our people at once. It felt so normal to be with all of them and so sad that it wasn’t really normal anymore.

This is Kyle and Kate on our trip to see the rebuilt Eastern Market. We lived in the Eastern Market neighborhood when the market burnt down. It's now rebuilt and a surprising nice shade of pink.

My friends Lindsey and Molly threw me a baby shower. It was nice to have girl time and get all sorts of adorable things for baby. Below see baby’s first piece of DC propaganda.