In flight

When I flew to Hawaii a few weeks ago, I decided to let my side kick come along. Note to self: Hugh is not a good luck charm.

You can imagine my joy, when I learned the flight was totally full. Over booked, even. And you can imagine the pure excitement the elderly couple next to me must have thought when they saw me waddling my way down the isle, holding The Hugh + accessories (two over sized carry ons overflowing with things of the food/entertainment sort) : Oh. That's my seat.

And ya know, I don't blame them.

I crossed all the fingers I could, and crossed my heart, hoped to die, stick a whatever, wherever. Please. Let me make this out alive.

And I did. Not that 5-ish hours flew by, by any means, but we made it. The human slept most of the time, and it was fairly uneventful.

And then we landed.

And some dizzying two weeks later, we were back at the airport to do it again.
And I won't talk about how we sat at the airport for ten hours.
Because they kept delaying our flight in twenty minute encraments.
All day.
And finally decided to simply cancel our flight.
After 10 hours.
I won't talk about that.

Ah hem.

The (eventual...two days after I was supposed to leave...) flight back home was looking far more promising. There were rows and rows left empty. My odds were really working out in my favor.

And then, some time around the third hour straight, of enduring my angelic son yelling, I thought that my brain was imploding. If I wasn't sure of the fact that every single person on that plane knew exactly who the vocally enhanced child belonged to, I would have washed my hands or him, and just stared at the freak-show, like everyone else on the plane was; curing that mother for not being able to take care of her child. Unfortunatly, the staring was pointed in my direction.

So, I knew I was not off the hook.

As J would say, "Oh crap."

Now, let's talk about the "yelling" that was going on. This was not crying. Crying I could handle. Crying is sad. And pathetic. And makes you want to hold the poor little thing. Yelling? Not so innocent. Yelling is loud. And ugly. And loud. And yelling. Imagine an adult. Yelling. Now, imagine that same sound, coming from a pint-sized human. It was awful. AND HE WOULD NOT STOP.

I cuddled him.
I gave him his blanket.
I gave him his sippy cup.
Food.
Toys.
Games.
My phone.
I made him a bed.
I walked with him.
I bounced him.
I danced with him.
I rocked him.
I sang to him.
I offered him my life. If he would just STOP YELLING.
Wash. And repeat. You know the drill...

Nothing worked.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.

And I hated everything second of it.
Yelling. Constant. 3 hours. YELLING.

Finally, I offered to nurse the poor sucker for the 39th time, and, apparently, who knew?? That's all it took. 39 times later, the alien-child was out in a second. Literally. It was as if the world stopped spinning. Just like that.

I sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. Without moving a muscle. Now that is talent my friends. Those three hours were my personal hell. Everything in me ached.

I wanted to be anywhere but there.

And I cried more.
It came to me like a wave.
She had taken the same flight before me.
Heading home.
With baby in arms.

And she would have given her life.
To hear him cry...

I cried more.
And held him closer.
And let my body go numb. Not moving an inch. Because he was sleeping.