This weekend I had the privilege of being the sole parent in the household for an entire 72 hour period leaving Quentin at the mercy of his father's parenting. Before people start thinking about how much fun all the NFL game watching, beer drinking and possibly occasional cigar smoking session was, let me just lay a few ground rules. First, don't bother buying the beer. It will only make you jealous seeing it sit there because you will not have time to drink so much as one delicious drop. 8 month old children, apparently, require your attention 24/7 leaving no time to indulge in such frivolous personal enjoyments. Next, you can forget about the cigar smoking. He couldn't hold on to it and was constantly dropping it so that was out. Finally, he doesn't care about TV so it didn't matter if we were watching the 1996 season of "America's Team" where the Packers manhandled their opponents in route to their third Championship. He simply wasn't interested. So the man weekend I had planned was out. The Mr. Mom weekend I hadn't planned on was in.
It all started on Friday when Q and I got the pleasure to fly home together from Iowa. As usual Quentin was good on both flights. The first plane was so small a 1 by 2 as in a total of 1 seat, aisle, 2 seats we could barely fit in our seats. We were in the two with the lottery winner, a business man, who was so excited to see us bounding down the aisle only to stop at his row. Quentin is so big now, or rather the seats (planes) are so small now that there isn't room for two even if he is a baby. His feet either touch the person next to you if you lay him horizontal across your lap or are touching, actually, kicking the seat in front of him. Hmm, we get another year and half before we have to buy him a seat. You don't want to travel near us. The second flight he slept before we left the gate and was still sleeping when we landed.
The hardest part of traveling with him is carrying all the gear. My back will never be the same. I was carrying him (20+ pounds), my briefcase with laptop, the stroller and his diaper bag full of food/bottles. I had many people pass their pity on to me, and for the most part were pretty helpful. When I got off the first plane I got the stroller, put him in it and drove about 30 yards to discover there is two flights of stairs. How is that even allowed? Fortunately some lady threw me a solid and carried the stroller for me. Outside of TSA hassling me and making me open every bottle (3) and sealed baby food jar (2), incidentally considered a liquid, which delayed us about 30 minutes it was pretty uneventful. After TSA finished their "terrorist" check in Cedar Rapids, where Bin Laden is reportedly hiding, they asked incredulously, "Are you traveling alone?" Actually no, I'm with the screaming child you detained for 30 minutes. He was clean and we only had to put him on the conveyor belt for X-rays. I'm sure it was a great relief to the other passengers on our plane.
We got to the airport in Tampa and our bags and car seat (intact!) were already waiting for us. When we got home and got the mail we had a letter from Delta with their sincerest apologies and to tell us they were cutting us a check to pay for the car seat. We appreciate it and think they did the right thing. We were still very surprised they did. It was worth writing the letter. I am a big fan of the letter and think if people would do it more often there would be more satisfied customers. They also kicked me 10,000 miles because "they know I may not be able to fly as much this year due to the economy." And Miller Lite shot me a check for $15. Corporate America is worried about losing you as a customer for the first time in a long time. Take advantage.
I have more, but also have a 6 am flight, so I'll save the rest for later this week like how junior dropped his pacifier at dawn in a toilet, soiled and already flushed leaving dad with a half second decision to either go swimming or....stay tuned.
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