I knew Sol's last trip as the world's largest lap infant was going to be hard.
And because Jaime and I are smart only in very niche, completely ungrounded in reality sort of ways, we booked a trip with *8 separate flights.
It's like we will never be interested in helping ourselves, but it does create memories.
I was already stressed out by the time we got to our first gate in Kansas City. I hadn't brought a stroller because Sol wants to, "WALK!" and goes through security better in the front pack even though, when she's strapped to me, we look like a 12-year-old carrying an 9-year-old.
It was fine. Jaime would be carrying her through all the airports, anyway, but at that moment, he was in the bathroom, so I was chasing after her while our bags were, worst nightmare, unattended.
However, the announcement that stopped me in my tracks wasn't the unattended bags one we all have significant anxiety about. It was this...
"Attention. The passenger who left a book at (restaurant name) entitled, White Nationalism, can pick that up at Information."
It was a good reminder that unattended bags were actually not my worst nightmare. I looked around wildly so that everyone knew I was horrified and that is was certainly not my book, but everyone, including Sol, seemed totally unfazed.
Despite my horror, I do wish that airport employee gets everything she wants in this life and thank her for her service. Because have you ever heard an all-airport announcement about a lost book? Of course you haven't.
The only thing that happened on the first flight (with maybe a White Nationalist???) is that Sol peed through her diaper and directly into my underwear. I count that as a complete success.
On the second, two young men boarded behind us, and one of them was the lucky passenger who got to sit next to us. He rolled his eyes and shook his head while his friend laughed at him. I almost said something about how he should just pay for a private jet next time, but I was afraid he was going to be right.
He wasn't. Sol was PERFECT, and she made a joke out of him. I'm sure he thinks about his behavior once every day and regrets it.
On the third and longest flight, she pooped four times in eight hours.
If you haven't done it (Jaime), changing a poop diaper on an airplane is like being sealed in a coffin at the bottom of a pond with a lot of poop and the largest bass you have ever seen who's trying to get back in that pond, and you can't let any poop get on the bass.
I can't imagine what we looked like by the time we got to Dublin, but we all smelled pretty bad. A week later, we took our last flight to Valencia, and I'm pretty sure Ryan Air had to ban farm animal stickers on all their planes after that.
While we were in Spain, Jaime severely hurt his back and Sol shoved a flower stamen up her nose. Only one of those problems resolved themselves before our flights home.
It was the flower.
Jaime was absolutely miserable. I would have given anything to have taken that pain away from him and put it on myself.
Because then he would have been the one who had to chase and carry a 35 pound toddler through five airports and four countries over the course of two days.
* This is actually Air Canada's fault, not ours. Many good things have come from Canada. We could talk about them all day, and go, "I had no idea they/it were/was from Canada!" But Air Canada is not one of them.
