Thoughts from the air

     I've done a lot of flying in my lifetime, but boy has flying changed since having a baby.  As I sat on this last flight, I was kind of in awe as I looked around at the other passengers on board who were reading, listening to music, sleeping, drinking complimentary beverages because they had free hands to hold the drinks, etc.  I used to do those things on a plane, too ... in a far away world that I can hardly remember.  :)  Flying now is a task that requires my full energy and attention.  It requires even more when there is someone in the seat right next to me, and I have to spend the majority of the time making sure Emmett doesn't touch that person.   

     I am not really complaining--just noticing how different it is.  Emmett really is a good little traveler.  He's busy, but he's happy; and between sitting on my lap, sitting on the floor, standing on my lap, and standing on the floor, he has enough variety to be content for the duration of the flight.  The tricky part is getting him to sleep.  He has to get really tired before he'll fall asleep in my arms.

Anyway, I learned a few things about me, about life and about strategy on my last trip, in which I had four different flights and two five-hour car drives with my Emmett man.  

1)  SWA seating strategy 

      As long as you board with family boarding (right after the A group), you are pretty much guaranteed to be able to get a window seat.  Get a window seat about 4 or 5 rows from the back of the plane.  Middle seats in the front of the plane fill up faster than those in the back.  Also, this way people that are still looking for seats when they get to you will be able to see seats in the rows behind you and will likely opt for those ones rather than sit by a baby.  The next step is to hope that a single traveler will sit in the aisle seat.  Sit the baby or diaper bag in the middle seat during the boarding process. Nursing is a also a great deterrent at this point to keep that middle seat empty.  Unless it's a completely full flight, it is likely that the middle seat will stay empty.  It also helps to travel mid-week when flights tend to be a little less full.  

     This strategy worked on 3 of my 4 flights.  In fact, on one of my flights (my four hour one!), Emmett and I got the whole row to ourselves.  The one flight that it didn't work was a relatively short one, and luckily I didn't have to nurse Emmett at all.  There really is just not enough space to nurse a 9-month-old baby within the confines of an airline seat.         

2)  I can do hard things.

     Like go to the bathroom and button my jeans all while holding a baby.  Not easy, but possible.  Had to do it twice.  Washed my hands (well, hand), too.

3)  When a door closes, a window opens. 

     Or in other words, when you can't sleep on a flight like everyone else on board, you might see amazing things when you look out the window.  For example, I have flown the SWA flight to and from Phoenix various times in my life, but this was the first time that I saw the Grand Canyon from the plane.  This was amazing to me!  I've always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, and yet I had never realized that I'd passed up the opportunity to see it simply because I wasn't looking.  

While not sleeping on my flights I also saw a large forest fire with various helicopters dropping water.  I also saw a phenomenal lightning storm at night.  It was really impressive, and I wondered if it looked as cool from the ground as it did from the air.   

To sum it up, being a mom has certainly changed some things about my life and what I do; but those changes allow me to see things that I'd never see and become a person I could never be otherwise.   

 So thanks to my little traveling buddy for teaching me some great in-flight lessons.