Wunderkind

As I mentioned, we were a little concerned about the flight and time change. We had to get Grace up at 5am when she usually likes to be up between 8 and 9, and then take the T to the airport. We foolishly hoped she would fall asleep on the T. We figured she would be overtired by the time we even got on the plane, then have to make it through the six hour flight, then see lots of people in Seattle, and then have to make the drive to Bellingham, and then we planned to keep her awake to put her to bed at her regular time, but on pacific time.

First bit of good news was that my ploy to get her a seat on the plane worked! I followed all the advice and booked us in an aisle and a window and then when we checked in took that cute baby up the counter and asked if there were any extra seats. We got sooo lucky because the flight was not quite full and Grace got a seat. We got Dunkin and started waiting for our flight. And waiting.

Steve heard something about a maintenance problem. Despite all rationality, I’ve grown into a wee bit nervous flyer. The more I travel, the more antsy I get, and I spent a year commuting cross country which more or less did me in because I learned the “normal sounds”. I am not so irrational, however, to not be afraid of cars also. I am basically afraid of all forms of transportation other than walking. Steve is also a nervous flyer, and I actually hold him accountable for my fears because he taught me about Bernoulli’s principle. The trouble with marrying an engineer. But I digress. Anyway. Eventually, the gate attendant announced that there was a dent in the plane and they had to call Alaska’s maintenance headquarters in Seattle to find out what to do. So we waited. Then, they announced that they had to take measurements of the dent to send to hq. Great. My approach in such situations is to assume that the pilots do not have death wishes and that since they have to sign off on the maintenance before the flight we should be okay. I mentioned Ford not recalling those cars in the 80s and that Alaska would be doing a cost-benefit/risk analysis, but Steve said Alaska wouldn’t want to risk losing a multimillion dollar plane. Oh, right. So then I felt better.

Ultimately, they must have decided the dent was okay, we boarded, and Grace slept through take off while I kept twiddling her binky to make sure she sucked and didn’t have ear trouble. She charmed _everyone_ around us, especially the grandparents in the seats behind us and the flight attendants. The flight attendants were so nice _and_ there was a changing table in the restroom (all things parents flying with infants are told to fear). Grace only fussed a little twice and completely slept through landing, refusing to take the binky despite my efforts to jam it in her mouth to prevent ear trouble. SUCCESS!

Then round two started. We got the curb, said hello to my mom, and when she tried to start the car… the ignition switch had locked. Many calls to the dealership and AAA later, we were told AAA would be there within the hour. So we settled in to wait and Grace continued to be a total champ. Cheerful and smiley, but unable to charm the cop who came to find out why we were still parked at arrivals after an hour… where was he for the first 55 minutes!?

We finally made it to Bellingham, via Ivars on the lake - yum. Despite my better judgment, we decided to push Grace to the absolute edge by waking her from a nap and taking her over to a park to walk with my dad. She perked right up to bond with Grandpa. Then we came home, put her to bed and she slept till 4 am, and then went back to sleep till 8am. Whew!

Yep, I'm back dating these posts to when I thought about writing them. Hope that doesn't violate the blogger's code.