For the trip down, I did something I swore I would never do. I lap sat a child over the age of awareness. Honestly, in a very young child, lap sitting is great, but Ladybug is old enough to want to be everywhere and holding her on my lap for 4 hours was not looking to be a great idea. Our flight down however, was better that I could have ever hoped for. We had a bit of a chaotic start, I ended up working late, Ladybug didn’t get a nap, and once we got to the airport it took a while to get through TSA because of the carseat. It had to be taken out of its travel bag and inspected by hand. This normally would be fine except ladybug is VERY attached to her carseat. The fact someone else was touching her carseat was not ok with her. This made it even worse when I tried to put her carseat back in its travel bag (because TSA can take it out of the bag, but not help put it back in). Cue tears, kicking and screaming, world ending temper tantrum. So here I am dragging a carseat and a roller carry on and juggling a screaming almost two year old. It was a bit of a pain. A very nice gentleman stopped and helped me get situated before heading to his gate.
We had just enough time to run through the line to pick up some pink slime (McDonalds) and mad dash to the gate (C-7). For those of you that know Anchorage, That is about as far away from TSA as you can get in our dinky little airport. We reached the gate and I stood in line waiting for a gate agent to try to get Ladybug a seat on the plane while poking nuggets in her mouth. Unfortunately it was packed full so I gate checked the carseat and we mad dashed a quick diaper change and clothing change. PJ’s are the only way to fly if you are under 3 in my opinion. We boarded first to ensure I could get things stowed that needed stowing and out that needed to be out. Ladybug was in an excellent mood now smiling and basically charming everyone. Let me tell you, Airplane seatbelts are wonderful child entertainment devices. There were two separate occasions where the seatbelt entertained Ladybug for about 45 minutes each instance.
Ladybug didn’t sleep for the WHOLE flight, which was as amazing as it was going to be horrid later since she didn’t get a nap on Friday either. She didn’t fuss, but colored, watched some Blue’s Clues and had a good old time. I did stand up for a bit with her in the Ergo at the back of the plane just to try to get her to sleep, but it didn’t work (which as I found out on our return trip, was a blessing). I then sat her down in my seat for more seatbelt entertainment. Landing went well; I wiggled the pacifier which made her suck on it so she didn’t have any problems.
In Seattle, the biggest problem was the rental car. You have to walk to the north 40 to get on the shuttle to get to their “brand new” rental car area with plenty of waiting space (which you need). At midnight when we finally got there, it took us 45 minutes to get through the rental car line. In this time, Ladybug fell asleep at minute 40. This means she got about a 20 minute nap while I filled out paperwork, got to the rental car and got the carseat buckled in. She woke up as I was putting her in the carseat. We then had a 5 minute drive to the hotel, during which she fell asleep again. 10 minutes to get to our room and she was wide awake which was ok because we had to wait for the delivery of the pack n play to use as a crib/bed for her. It finally was about 1:30 before we were in bed and 2am before she was asleep. Next time I will wait till the next day to pick up the rental car. Friday was a very long day.
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