By 9:24AM Kirsten had us on route to YEG and managed to get
us there before 10:00AM. Impressive. It was during this drive that Heather and
I had our first high five… Actually, I offered up the high five and Heather
denied me, saying that too many obstacles were in our way to be celebrating
just yet. Heather is all “work first and fun later”.
At the Air Canada kiosk, we were unsure if we should keep
the baby backpack and check the Chariot baby carrier or vice versa. After
speaking with the clerk, it became clear that he had no idea if the Chariot was
allowable based on its size. Rather than check with someone who knew the answer,
he said “ah… go ahead. I’m sure it’s fine.” And off we went with most of our
carry on bags in the Chariot and Fenton in my arms.
Going through security in Edmonton was certainly a blur. The
security person detected explosives on the Chariot and all of the bags had to
be searched. This was a good thing because we needed to repack all of our carry
on bags anyways. We packed them in a panic that morning and really had no idea
where anything was. When a half consumed bottle of Pepsi was pulled out, both Heather
and I laughed because this is not a mistake we would ever make under normal
circumstances. By the time we were through security, all of our carry on bags
were well organized, Heather had been through a body scan while I held Fenton
and we had confirmation that there were in fact no dangerous explosives with
us. This was when we had our first high five.
Fenton was a dream on the flight to Calgary. He was
obviously saving something special for the flight to Los Angeles.
In Calgary we
had to pick up all of our bags to clear customs. The customs official went into
great detail how poor his luck was. He was excited to see a beautiful woman in
line (Heather) but when she approached his desk, he realized that his luck was
over when she was followed by a young man with a baby boy. Heather responded by
saying that she thought he had a very nice wedding ring. Awkward.
Security in Calgary was another adventure except that we
knew where the liquids and gels were. I held Fenton because he behaved best
with his dad for some reason. While in line, I reached into my pocket to get my
phone and it was wet. The sound of urine hitting the ground seemed to get the
attention of many in line as the wet spot on my shirt became larger by Fenton.
At the X ray a security guard barked out orders at Heather, rushing her through
the process. Heather replied that she was still trying to satisfy the first
request before getting the fifth one done. She ordered me to pull a bottle out
of Fenton’s mouth so that it could be X-rayed (this did not go well) and
Heather had to complete yet another body scan. Another gong show completed
earned us another high five.
The flight to LA was 5 hours. Fenton was awake the entire
flight and had not napped all day. Needless to say, he was a bit of a handful.
Speaking of handfuls, Fenton has a habit of larger than normal bowel movements
during flights and this was true to form. When Fenton did his business, I made
my way to the restroom with a bag of diapers, wipes and Vaseline.
Unfortunately, I forgot to bring a garbage bag. The change table in Air Canada
planes are horribly small. I was lucky to get Fenton’s head and bum on the
table. When Fenton’s pants came off poop was oozing out of the diaper, all over
the pants, his legs, and feet. That was when the turbulence began. I used paper
towels to scoop as much of the awful smelling feces before removing the diaper.
Without getting into any more detail, Fenton and Greg made it unscathed.
In LA we had a wonderful break as Fenton had a nap in the
Chariot and Heather slept. It was a 7 hour wait until out flight. The issue of course was that Fenton had had so much sleep that he was up until
2:30AM before he went back down. During the 10 hour flight to Rarotonga we were lucky to get two hours of sleep. Adventures go this way sometimes.
No comments:
Post a Comment