5:00 AM Bye Bye

5:00 AM Bye Bye
Originally uploaded by vczdavis

I’m going to write about the nightmare trip home I had as it is fresh in my mind, but fear not, you will soon hear about my wonderful week in Florida.

So on Saturday I spend the day packing and leave for the airport around 3:30, there is a little traffic but nothing bad. It was tough packing, in addition to my two suitcases, diaper bag and purse, we had two huge boxes to mail home and a medium sized one. I could not fit everything I wanted in the suitcases, but it was close enough. We get there and check in. I comment that they are giving 250$ to give up your seat on the flight and fly tomorrow and an employee says that they are over booked in Houston. The check-in time is 5:45 and we head towards security, my mom has a gate pass so I have some help. It takes us about 30 minutes to take all of the formula out of the various bags, and our shoes off, and my laptop out and my phone and keys in a separate container and the baby through the metal detector, and finally we are on the way to the gate. They made me dump out my bottle of tea, so I want a drink, but first we decide to check the gate number and notice my flight says it is leaving at 8:04 pm not 6:30. So I am worried and we head to the gate. The plane I am to take to Houston is coming from Newark and is delayed. Well what am I to do I ask; my flight out of Houston leaves a 9:00 will I make my connection? No. This flight doesn’t arrive until 9:39. Well is there another flight, 2 hours later, and 15 airlines, there is no other flight to San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, or Sacramento out from Tampa to anywhere (Minneapolis, Atlanta, Denver) or once I arrive in Houston after 9:39. Well what if I fly to Houston, when is the next flight out, in the morning? No, not until Monday Night or Tuesday…. WHAT and had I not checked on my connection, or had a place to stay? I would have been stuck in Houston for 2-3 days on my own dime… Are you out of your mind? They almost find me a flight through Denver by then it ends up being cancelled.. I need to get home what can you do? Another hour later.. And I have an 8:00 AM flight on another airline in the morning. So I say, well I am not on my flight in Houston, so do I get 250$ for giving up my seat and traveling the next day? No of course not, I just get inconvenienced, and they give me nothing for it.

So over 4 hours later we have to go down to baggage and try and find my luggage and lug everything back to the car and back to my parent’s house. We arrive and I eat and go to bed. Holly right on time falls asleep at 7:00, just when we would be on the plane and flying home. I have no allergy or asthma medicine, so I wake up at 3:30am and feel like shit. I can’t breathe, and I find a stash of Zyrtec and dig through my bag and find my nebulizer. I read the news and hear about a continental flight in Denver that runs off the runway and catches fire and 40 people are hurt… Wow, I guess I got Lucky not to be flying to Denver last night, but I will be there tomorrow.. Yikes. My alarm was set for 5:30 and by the time I am done with my meds is 5:15 so I stay awake.

My mom gets up and we load everything back into the car and transfer holly to the car seat and start back off to the airport. This time the Frontier personal are mean, first they try and make me pay for my bag, which I had already paid for the night before, and was not given a refund for, because I was told to show them the voucher and I would have my bag sent through, 2 arguments later a nearby Continental official comes over and says they will do a mou something or another and to please check my bag.. Then just to be a prick, he says well your bag is 2lbs over that’s a 50$ fee. Well F-U I take out a sweater and my bag is 50lbs exactly.

Back through security, shoes off, formula out, laptop out, scans, keys, phones, checks, and we are finally through and to our seats. We meet a little girl names Chloe who is 5 and was traveling alone, she was actually seated next to me which was amazing. We board the plane and are delayed about 40 minutes before taking off. We get settles, Chloe and I get free TV and Holly drinks a bottle and is down for her first nap of the day. Perfect for me, as I get to watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua which Joel worked on, and holly woke just as it was finishing.. Sadly the flight to Denver was 4.5 hours, this total trip was much longer then my original 1, and after the movie I try and entertain Holly for 2.5 hours. Chloe helped. As did the woman sitting behind me who played peek-a-boo with her, and the woman in our row on the Aisle was wonderful and helped both me and Chloe. We landed almost an hour late and I was worried, but then find out that the plane I am boarding in Denver is coming from Chicago and it is 3 hours delayed, so I am to wait, wait, and wait in Denver. Cranky, hungry, grumpy. We played for a little while by the windows which were really cold, but Holly loved them, she would climb up to standing and then breath on the window and see her breath on the glass. She loved this and did it over and over.

Holly peed on the previous flight and leaked all over her diaper and cloths, and then right when we got off the plane had a very messy poopie diaper, I then had to pee and there were not child seats in the bathroom, so I had her in the bjorn as I tried to pee and out from my pocket my phone fell as I was trying to pull my pants up so then I go to call Joel and tell him my flight is delayed and I have no phone screen, I mean it’s there but it is black. I was able to make a call out and let him know we were in Denver delayed. We finally board, and the stewardess was a witch.

See.. Holly was hungry and I knew when I fed her she would fall asleep and once she fell asleep I would be holding her with two hands and not have any hands free or be able to move, so I settled into the seat and asked for a seat belt extender. I am in row 3 and the extenders are in the overhead like 5 feet away, she says she will get it in just a minute but does not, I wait like 15 minutes and now Holly is crying and hungry and the person who is in the seat next to me arrives wanting to put down the seat arm and have me move my stuff, but once he sits I won’t be able to get my belt on, so I ask her again and she says I should wait I have plenty of time and I try and explain that I can’t wait, I won’t be able to do it later, and she says I am sorry you need to wait, and I say, do you want me to not wear the belt, if I wait I won’t be able to put it on, and she reaches up and gives me one, which took her like 5 seconds and makes a snotty comment. So I finally get my belt on, make a bottle for holly feed her and she falls asleep. We then find out there is “weather” in San Francisco, fog, lots of fog and that they are landing only 1 plane at a time and we have to delay another 45 minutes so we arrive at a time when they can land us and we won’t have to circle. I don’t care, Holly is sleeping and I try and get comfortable and snooze. When we get ready for takeoff I hear the stewardess talking to the other woman, about how rude the lady in row 3 with the baby is, and tells her how I threatened to not put on my seatbelt, and she was just trying to help me… I’m thinking, WTF… I am three rows away and you are talking loud enough that me and everyone between you and me can hear, 1st how unprofessional, but 2nd your bitching about a poor woman traveling alone with a baby? Whatever. Holly sleeps about 2 hours, but due to the delay we still have about 90 minutes in the air before landing. The guys next to me aren’t into babies, nor are the people behind us, so the flight is pretty miserable.

Then the stewardess bitches when I ask her to help me get my bag out of the overhead compartment, I mean geeze.. for real? The best thing in the world is that Joel was able to get a gate pass and he was waiting for me as soon as I got off the plane.

Next we change Holly look for my bag, which is lost but after about 20 minutes we find it, and then we get on the road, which is traffic due to the “Weather” and it takes us over an hour to get home, but finally home we are.

Sadly, I am sick sick sick. My eye is practically swollen shut from allergies and rubbing it with dirty hands and red and sore and I can’t breathe and I have a horrible cough and I am stuffy. Holly is asleep as soon as we get home, and I myself take a nap, then wake up have some mac and cheese and then go back to bed, from 9:00 PM till 1:00 PM the next morning. I was woken at 8:00 Am, to help Holly fall asleep for a nap (she woke up at 5:45 – Bless Joel for getting up with her) and needed mommy to cuddle her for her first nap.. Once I am awake I am coughing, stuffy, and need my nebulizer again, so it takes me about an hour to fall back asleep, but when I wake up at 1:00 PM I feel much better, but still sick.

It is now Tuesday Night, I am off to bed soon, I slept till about 1:30 today also, Joel again got up with holly at 6:00 Am, she is still adjusting to the time zone, and I am just so crappy feeling, but each time I sleep I feel a little better when I wake. Holly had a fever of 99.9 today but I think it is from teething, she was rather cranky on Monday during her PT Session also, so I discovered a 7th tooth coming in, and we think there might be a hiding back 8th tooth somewhere, as she keeps gnawing on her back left side, so we will see. We gave her Motrin tonight, she is going to bed at like 6, tonight I kept her up to 7:00 so hopefully Joel will get a little more sleep in the morning.

Joel got me a tree earlier in the week, and put lights on it, but we haven’t had time or energy to decorate it yet, so we plan to focus on doing that tomorrow. I guess it is a Christmas Eve tradition.