Mother's Day Drama Part 1

I had the most unbelievable Mother's day ever. My first one with the baby OUTSIDE the tummy. It should have been a lot better. Even if you are an occassional reader of the blog and skip through some posts, you should read this. Worse travel stories would be few and far between.

We had a "straight flight" form Portland, OR to Orlando. I put that in quotes because there was a stop over at Salt Lake City, UT. To begin at the beginning, our flight from Portland was at 1:30 pm (or so I thought) and so we left at 11:30 am. R was working till the last minute and so I had to load the stuff, baby, and make sure that nothing was left behind. Thankfully we made it to the airport at 12:10 pm with overflowing check in, carry on and diaper bag. R went with the baby to return the rental car and and I lugged in the heavy check in suitcase lifted it to weigh it. It was 2 lb overweight, they let it go anyway. Then again I had to lug it to the X ray machine and then finally it was on its way. The TSA asked me if the suitcase is locked and I said it is not and there is only a bunch of dirty baby laundry. They all smiled. So after all the lugging and pulling (my biceps and triceps have never looked better!) I stopped for a minute to catch my breath and take a look at the boarding pass. It was 12:40 by then and that is when I saw that our flight was NOT at 1:30, but it was 1:03. So it is not just that I had lost some brain cells with the delivery, I had developed mild dyslexia too. So I called R frantically and he said they are on the way. I walked to the security and since I had both the boarding passes, I did not want to check in and then come back out to give R his. Finally he came and we all got in. They took all the formula and baby food to check for explosives. Becasue that is what I feed him. Although one would wonder if they saw his diaper 3 hours later. So finally we were on our way with our non explosive baby food and formula and boarded the plane. And the aircraft door closed behind us. One would wonder at the sanity of this kind of traveling especially with a baby in tow. But this is our life, and I seem unable to change any of this. It is all written in the stars, it is destiny, or maybe it is that we should just get out of the house earlier and pack less.

We had 3 seats to ourselves as the person next to us didn't show up. Or maybe they did and saw a cranky baby and asked for a reassignment of the seat. I was very pleased though. Neil was okay as soon as I fed him some milk. He is just sweet like that. The plane landed at SLC and we figured we will get out and get a bite to eat and change Neil's diaper. After the diaper change, we headed for something to eat. Our continuing flight was at 5 pm. My phone said 3:15 and I figured there was time enough to eat. We got Sbarros and was almost done eating when I noticed a bright green patch on my bright white shirt. Neil had been sitting on the high chair, but I had picked him up and was holding him since he had started crying. Well, when I checked him, I found that he had the most explosive diaper EVER and had got it on me, himself, his hands, both of our clothes and oh my word, it was a disgusting mess.

So we walked to the nearest family restroom as there was no way I could clean both of us on my own. There was someone inside, and we waited. And waited. And waited. No one was coming out. I figured it was a large family with lot of kids and all of them wanted to go potty or something. I was getting impatient by the minute and kept ringing the bell. After 15 minutes (an eternity) later, the door opened. AND A SINGLE GUY WALKED OUT. I was speechless. I would have said something, but I really was speechless. Maybe there is a charitable explanation for a single guy using a FAMILY restroom, but I can't think of any. If you do, please shout out in the comments. We got inside and started cleaning up. We ran out of wipes in the end (we must have used at least 15), but we made do with paper towels in the end. By the time he was clean anyway. I cleaned myself as best as I could and took off my white shirt. Thankfully, I had a white tank top underneath and I figured that would do until I get to the carry on in the plane where I could find myself another top.

Well, the drama was just starting.

To be continued tomorrow.