First Flight

Fairly last minute, our family decided that we could all get together (almost all at least) for the only time for quite a while to come during the Thanksgiving holiday. So, just 2 weeks before the holiday, we bought tickets to take our first family flight to Dallas.

One of the biggest things that scared me about being a parent was flying with a child. Time to face my fears! I stressed out a bit before the vacation about all the details. But, when the day arrived, I felt pretty prepared for all the challenges of flying with an infant. Of course, as kids do, they take your plans and preparedness and throw them out the window. My sweet, mild tempered, well traveling child turned into a screaming mess!

It might have been due to our packing and scrambling that morning and not paying attention to Dylan as usual, but he started screaming uncontrollably before we left the house for the airport. OK, nothing a nap in the car couldn't fix. Unfortunately, it continued once we got settled next to our gate in the terminal. Boy, could I feel the evil eyes pointed our way. I know all those folks waiting to get on the plane were hoping we weren't going to be getting on it with them and our screaming baby. He calmed a bit while boarding (whew!) but then started up again once the doors to the plane had closed (ugh!). We were doing everything we could but just couldn't get him to calm down.

Thanks to his great Dad, he was comforted enough to finally stop screaming somewhere during the first half of the ascent and fell asleep. Since he's so good at sleeping in the car, I presumed he would sleep for most of the flight. Wrong again! He took a 30-45 minute nap and then woke up. Oh boy was this going to be a long trip!

On the upside, Dylan was in better spirits. And, although he needed lots of attention, bouncing and entertaining for the next few hours, the screaming had subsided and everyone on the plane ceased hating us. So the flight was, all in all, a pretty good success if you didn't count the older gentleman sitting next to us that wouldn't stop talking....he definitely one (or a few) screws loose! Minor issues though. At least our baby wasn't completely miserable during the whole trip and we all got to Dallas safely.

Of course, during all the "excitement" of his first flight, we neglected to take and photos to document the big event. Perhaps the flight back will be less eventful and we can get a picture then!