Southbound

Dear Laney,

Since I'm getting bigger by the day, this is the last week I could probably get away with traveling across the country. For months now, we've been planning a trip to Georgia and Alabama so we could see all of the relatives on my side of the family while I'm still allowed to leave Montana.

The last time your dad and I left the state, we waved goodbye to you as you were playing Play-Doh with Grandma Sue, and then didn't come back for three days. I think you've grown suspicious, and have begun to worry that we're going to drop you like a hot brick at the first opportunity. To hedge your bets, you camped out in the suitcase.

We drove over to Spokane on Thursday night and checked into an airport hotel so we'd just need to walk across the street to catch our 6am flight on Friday morning. It was a good plan in theory, but in practice, we still had to get up at 4:30am and get dressed and ready and haul all our stuff down the street. Since you are only an unreasonable human being when you're tired, this meant that you were primed to be an unreasonable small person all. day. long.

We got situated for the first leg of our trip and pulled away from the gate, only to have the pilot come on the loudspeaker to tell us that the computer needed a mechanical adjustment, and we had to go back. I considered pressing the attendant call button and informing the crew that my two year old needed an attitude adjustment, and the needs of Row 7 trump the needs of the cockpit. But it's been my experience that flight crews aren't willing to play rock, paper, scissors with passenger safety. So we sat on the tarmac for an hour.

On the second leg of our trip, you decided that you hated sitting in your seat, you hated coloring books, you hated the window shade, you hated your tray table, you hated peanut butter and you hated the seat belt. In fact, you hated the seat belt so much that you figured out how to remove it in 2.8 seconds, and I had to spend all of our take-off and landing time holding the buckle together so you couldn't undo it. All while you screamed your fool head off.

Mom: Maybe I'm wrong, but I think flying with her when she was 4 months old was easier than this.

Dad: I think Navy survival school was easier than this. And they made us eat bugs and live in a box.

Love,

Mom