Oklahoma Adventures

First of all, thank you to all who contributed advice for helping Dane sleep better. Although I am still working on making sure we have a good sleep routine and schedule, I suddenly became aware of what is perhaps a significant reason he’d been waking up so many times during the night.

Teeth!

Yes, at 4½ months, he is the proud cultivator of two budding teeth. As a result, he is chomping a lot, and he doesn’t hate the pacifier right now. In fact, he will hold it and take it in and out of his mouth, getting a few satisfying chews in. I’m hoping he figures out that if he sucks consistently, he can keep it there. I’d be so relieved if that happened. Not just for the pacifier but because then he’d take a bottle, and I would have so much more freedom! Here’s hoping.

Anyway, we had many adventures getting to, being in, and returning from Oklahoma. As you know, I had been nervous about flying by myself with Dane. If you ask me how it went, I will think about it and say that it really wasn’t too bad; in fact, it went pretty well. But if I think a little harder, I will realize that almost everything that could possibly go wrong did indeed go wrong.

We got to the airport in plenty of time, and we said our goodbyes to Joel. He was in for a lonely week (extra thanks to Heather & Ryan and Stephen & Meghan for feeding him and giving him company.) I find out that my flight is delayed 30 minutes. No problem. An hour later, the plane actually arrives, and we wait to be told we can board. Dane is pretty upset by now because I haven’t fed him because I wanted him to be hungry enough to nurse as we took off as I’d been advised to do. This obviously took longer than expected. Anyway, we get on the plane, they shut the door, and start to feed Dane. The captain says we won’t be leaving for a few minutes because of a minor repair that needs to be done. Shortly thereafter, he tells us that now there’s something wrong with the engine and we all have to get off the plane. The woman next to me, a kind woman from New Zealand, helps me cut in line to be one of the first to get rerouted because we were all missing our connections by then. Incidentally, the flight leaving from the gate next to us was also cancelled because the inflatable slide suddenly inflated there on the tarmac. I would have thought that was funnier if it wasn’t already such a stressful situation. Anyway, we finally board our other plane, and I’m relieved to find myself sitting next to a 10-year-old girl. She won’t take up as much space and won’t be able to try to sneak a peek at my breastfeeding Dane. Oh wait, she wants to trade seats with her Dad, a very broad-shouldered man. But he was actually very nice, and Dane did alright. He got a little fussy sometimes but was mostly pretty good. After this first flight, I didn't even try to feed him during takeoff and landing because Dane didn't seem fazed by the cabin pressurization. Swish.

Once I get to Denver, I have about 15 minutes until I board the next flight, and we find our gate easily. This time, I sat next to a nice man who joked about how he and Dane are both bald, but the flight ended up being pretty empty, so we all got our own row. This made things way easier. The man seemed disappointed that we changed rows. I wasn’t sure if I should be heartened or creeped out by that. Anyway, this time Dane was very chill and slept most of the way. Whew!

My entire family came to the airport to meet us, which was very fun. My mom and dad (Jiichan and Baachan to Dane) were so excited to see him. My dad wasn’t supposed to lift anything over ten pounds for a few more days after his heart procedure, so I tried my best to keep him from lifting Dane off his lap, but there is no stopping a grandfather holding his first grandchild. We celebrated Rika’s birthday when we got home that night. I will fill you in on more details about the trip in a later post.

Come Saturday, Dane had a fever and was fussier than normal. I’m pretty sure he caught something on the plane. Dang. He’d never been sick before, so it was a new adventure. His fever lasted through Monday, and he had coughing, sneezing, and a majorly runny nose. We awakened one morning, and I found Dane like this (brace yourself):

What a poor baby! It makes me want to cry just looking at this picture. He was such a trooper, though. He was understandably clingy and a little fussier than normal, but otherwise, he was such a good boy. Oh man. I may have to remove that picture.

Fast forward to the trip back to Utah. Again, we get to the airport in plenty of time. Jiichan and Baachan are very sad to see Dane go, and we are sad to leave them.

Again, my plane is delayed, this time by about an hour-and-a-half. I sat next to a very nice third- or fourth-generation Japanese-American man from Orange County. Although the plane was full, we were the lucky ones to have an empty seat between us. Dane pooped. See, because Dane only poops every five days, I was really not worried about him pooping on the plane. But he did. It seemed to be a really small one, and it didn’t really stink, so I figured I’d wait to change him until we landed; the flight was only an hour. The nice man and I chatted a lot, and Dane slept most of the time. Then, right as the captain announced that we were starting our descent, Dane pooped again. Again! This is unprecedented in the life of Dane. This time I knew I didn’t have the luxury of waiting, so I went to the back, and the flight attendant spread a blanket on the ground for me. Of course, the poop leaked onto his clothes. I had a spare outfit, but I hadn’t brought it to the back with me, and we were to the point where everyone was supposed to be back in their seats, so I took the bib off his neck and held it where the poop leaked onto his clothes and hoped that would work until we got to Denver. Once there, I changed his clothes and found out my connecting flight was delayed an hour. ‘sigh.’ But we get on our way, and I sit next to a nice woman who was happy to sit next to the baby. Dane sleep almost the entire time. We land in Salt Lake, I congratulate myself for surviving the trip, and Dane wakes up and throws up all over himself and me. That exhausted my supply of backup outfits. But if he was going to throw up, I guess that was a good time to do it. Then, we met up with a very excited Joel, our family once again reunited on a happy Valentine’s Day.

All in all, I discovered that people are really exceptionally nice when you’re traveling with a baby. People kept offering to hold my backpack or fold and unfold the stroller. Even the captain helped me a couple of times. The experience scored many points for humanity.

This is really long, so I’ll end there for now. Tune in next time for the actual stay in Oklahoma!