Flying Fiasco!

Here I go with my flying story. I really don’t recommend you begin reading until you have a lot of time! Tuesday my mom drops me off at the airport to start my journey with Kenleigh back to Salt Lake City. If you know me you know that I HATE to fly. It’s a huge fear of mine. I do it anyway because it’s really the only way to see family. The only logical way. Our plane getting in to Atlanta was 45 minutes late. I only had a 25 minute layover in Denver so I knew there was trouble. 25 minutes usually isn’t a stretch in the Denver airport. After a very bumpy flight we made it in to Denver around 6:15. I found out we missed our flight by less than 10 minutes. The flight we should have been on was also delayed due to weather so to find out I missed it by 10 minutes and not 45 really sucked. It sucked – to put it lightly! We were confirmed on the next flight at 9:25 PM. UGH!!! Kenleigh isn’t a cuddler, she really likes to be playing on the floor or in her exersaucer. Not a huge fan of being held. I was not looking forward to this next three hours in the airport alone. To top it off the blizzard outside is only worsening. I’m freaking out about flying in this kind of weather. Then I look up at the board and find out my flight is delayed an hour. An hour later I look up again to find it’s delayed another hour and another hour and another hour. Finally before 1 AM all flights in and out of the Denver airport have been grounded. Grounded??? You have got to be kidding me. I have a 7 month old with me with a limited supply of food. Did you say grounded? I had done really good holding it together up to this point but I couldn’t handle it for just a moment in time. I went and stole a wheelchair, dropped my belongings in it and sat down with Kenleigh in my lap. I couldn’t even bring myself to walk another inch so I wheeled us to the back of the line to get on the next available flight first thing in the morning. I call Zach to tell him my flights cancelled and all I can do is cry. Poor Zach, he’s home and can’t do anything to help us. He felt entirely too helpless. Sad. I cried, “I seriously can’t do this. I can’t spend the entire night here. I’m tired. I’m frustrated. I’m sad. And worst of all I’m tired of holding Kenleigh.” How sad is that to say? It wasn’t to say I was tired of being around her. I was literally tired of holding her. My arms and body were aching. I had to use the bathroom sooooo bad. Denver airport doesn’t have changing tables in their bathroom stalls so I didn’t have anything to strap her to. I certainly wasn’t going to put her on the bathroom floor. So basically I was just tired. Zach told me to be aggressive and go to the front of the line and just insist they help me so I can go and make ourselves comfortable for the night. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. There were thousands of people there all for the same reason. Why was I so special? Then I realized I really didn’t see many kids. I really did have unique circumstances. After a lot of crying and over an hour in line without moving an inch in my wheelchair I decided Zach had a point. I stood up, walked to the front of the line, and started bawling. The lady was so helpful and asked the couple who was next if I could cut in line. The woman’s answer…”it doesn’t really matter what we say she’s going to anyway.” Thank you kind woman. Oh and PS we weren’t even going to the same destination so it’s not like I took her seat out from under her. Ask me if I felt bad. I didn’t. Not at this point. They couldn’t get us on a confirmed flight until 10:30 the next morning. I braced myself for the long evening. I’m also proud to say I didn’t lose it again emotionally. That’s not to say I didn’t want to lose it on a few individuals. Anyway, I got my ticket and Kenleigh and I headed to the bathroom. I rolled us into the handicapped stall and never felt better. Actually that’s a lie. I’ve felt a lot better…on many occasions. After that we found a quiet hallway and made ourselves at home. It’s true, I was close to an outlet; I plugged in the phone, made up Kenleigh’s bed. Prepared my snacks…you know so that once she fell asleep I didn’t wake her and rocked my girl to sleep. I never dared to fall asleep because I was too afraid of my perfection of a daughter getting kidnapped. I just watched. Watched people and watched Kenleigh sleep. I don’t get to watch her sleep much so that part was nice. Kenleigh woke up at 5:30 that morning and decided she didn’t want to sleep anymore. Turns out that was also my last bottle for her. I packed extra but not that much extra. We packed up our hut and headed for the terminal. On our way though we did find some formula for Kenleigh. As I’m headed to the terminal I realize we are heading to the basement. No bueno. Not good. It’s cold in the basement. I realize I’m not getting on a plane with a jet engine. No ma’am. I’m getting on a prop plane. You know, with propellers and only 30 people. You know, the kind that has to be weighed before they can take off. Yes sirs, that’s the one. It was so cold in the basement as I mentioned before. The doors were open so people could get on and off the planes. I mean walk on and off the runway. Yep, people walked right onto the runway…in the blizzard…and up the stairs…all 3 of them to get on the plane. The basement was cold. Kenleigh was cold. I felt horrible. I had a jacket and I tried to wrap her up. Couldn’t people tell I already felt bad enough? I guess not.
Nice (not so nice woman): You really should wrap her better in this cold. You need to get her out of here.
Me (in my head): And take her where you psycho?
Nice (not so nice woman): Don’t you at least have a jacket or hat for her? She’s going to catch a cold.
Me (out loud this time): No, unfortunately her jackets are in her suitcase. We’re coming from Georgia.
Nice not so nice woman walks away. She’s lucky this time!
A kind gentleman next to me caught the rather non discrete eye roll from me and offered his blanket. Thank you nice sir. As we sit and wait for our plane (prop plane) Kenleigh is getting hungry. I make her a bottle with the formula I happened upon. Turns out she doesn’t eat formula she has never had before. She wanted nothing to do with it but was starving. I bought an apple juice and diluted it and it turns out she doesn’t drink that either. Kenleigh was starving and wanted all of us to know about it. She did really well up until about 9:00 AM waiting for our plane. She is now in hysterics. I’m trying frantically to rock her to sleep when this big, BIG southern woman (I’m not judging I’m just giving a mental image) walks up and says, “don’t you think she’d stop crying if maybe I hold her?” Me (in my head): Um, no I don’t. I think you’ll scare the crap out of her and she’ll cry beyond what I can handle at this point. Me (outloud this time): Um, no. I think she’s hungry, out of food, tired, and just needs her mom. Thanks though. Oh people. So interesting. Finally at 10:30 we start boarding out plane a touch late. No big deal. The end is finally in sight. 11:00 AM the pilot comes over the intercom…did I say intercom? I meant he stands up and starts talking to us (small plane remember?). When it rains it pours. Apparently our breaks are frozen and we’ll be a while longer. Seriously? Then this 5 or 6 year old boy yells out to the pilot (dumb boy the pilot already locked himself back in the cockpit) “If you don’t fly this plane right now I’m going to give my loudest scream ever. 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhh” Me (in my head) to boys mom: You’ll regret that. Sure enough Kenleigh is up and matching his screams.
Kind woman next to me: Why is she crying so much?
Me: She’s just really hungry and tired and she won’t eat this formula or her apple juice.
Kind woman next to me: Well I guess with your next child you’ll learn to breast feed her won’t you?
Me: Punches kind woman in the face.
Was she serious? She really was. People…so rude.
Long story short…shorter than I could have made it. I made it home at about 2 on Wednesday with my sweet Kenleigh in tow safe and sound! Oh yeah, and for every rude individual I dealt with there were many more nice ones!