The Flight
Guess what? We made it. Max and I successfully flew across the country and honestly, he was better than I thought he might be.
I was hoping that he would go back to sleep for a little bit on the way to the airport since I had to wake him up at 4am, but he didn't. In the end, it probably worked out okay because it helped him to start to adjust to the eastern time zone. I was HOPING that they would give me TSA Pre-Check because of having the baby with me, but they didn't. Boo. The security line wasn't too terrible, but it did take a little while to get through. I thought maybe I could get through and then feed Max, but he got fussy in the stroller so I ended up feeding him right in line. While pushing the stroller, holding his bag and my backpack. We were sight, I'm sure.
No mishaps through security, although it took a while for me to get everything unloaded and through. Well actually, they did spill some of his bottles and they had to "test" them. But they came through pretty much fine.
When we got through security, I remembered to get the tag for the stroller, and I managed to get to the bathroom with the stroller and all of our bags. I also bought a huge water so I wouldn't be too thirsty!
When we got on, we headed straight for the back. (We were flying southwest so we had the luxury of choosing our own seats!) At first I wasn't sure the flight attendant was going to be nice to me, but she ended up being okay. I told her that I was flying alone and that I was really hoping that the seat next to me would be empty because Max is so wiggly. There was another flight attendant who wasn't working flying standby sitting across the aisle from me. He offered to sit in the aisle seat and keep people from sitting in the middle. I was so thankful! He was really nice and told me that any time I needed to get up to go change diapers to just let him know and he would get up for us. I was so glad to have someone so helpful! Another little boy who was 15 months old was sitting in front of us with his parents. They were also hoping that no one would sit in the middle seat. The only real issue we had, was that when this little boy started to cry and get upset, it scared Max and he would start to cry as well. Sort of a scared/sympathy cry. (Couldn't blame him, that boy was loud!)
Max took two naps on our first flight (which was 5 hours.) The first one was about 40 minutes and the second one was about 30. Not great, but not terrible either. I stuck to a schedule of giving him a bottle about every three hours even though we were changing time zones.
When we landed in Baltimore, I was one of the last people off the plane (a hazard of sitting in the way back) so I had to rush to get to our next gate because we didn't have much time. I grabbed something to eat at the first place I saw, dashed into a bathroom (THANK YOU GOD FOR FAMILY RESTROOMS) and raced to the next concourse to our gate. They were lined up to board, but weren't actually boarding when I arrived. I wanted to go jump into line, but I had to wait to get a gate check tag for the stroller again. There was a line of business people trying to change their flights, and they were taking FOREVER. I was being very impatient. Max, however, was calm and happy and didn't seem to care much that we were just standing there (well, he was sitting in his stroller.)
Once I finally got on the next flight, I was hoping that we would have an empty seat next to us again, but I figured if we didn't, we would live because the flight was only about 45 minutes. But, lucky us - we did! A nice lady sat in the aisle seat and I chatted with her while Max charmed her with his big smile and vivid blue eyes. He ever fell asleep right as we were landing, and took a little snooze while I gathered all of our stuff.
My parents met us on the other side of security and I was back to having help again! Success!
