Nightmare at 30,000 feet

Well, it was bound to happen sometime. On Zachary's 21st flight (and still no frequent flyer miles to show for his journeys!), we finally had a total meltdown. Big time. Of course it had to be his longest flight yet, which made for unhappiness both from Zachary, Meh, and likely everyone around us.

The day was pretty much cursed from the start; I had to run a few errands before we headed to the airport, so we got off a few minutes late. We dropped off the car and headed to the terminal, and here the problems started to mount. Here's how it played out:

• We checked in at one of those self-serve kiosks. You then have to wait for the agent to call your name and get your bag check tags and such. Okay, so we stood there. And stood there. There wasn't even much of a queue, but people who had checked in after us kept getting called up. At first we assumed they must just have earlier flights, but 25 minutes later, we still hadn't been called. The gate agent finally motioned us up after noticing us standing around with Zachary starting to get annoyed.


• The umbrella stroller had to be checked in at a different location around the corner, adding more time and luggage dragging.


• The security line was quite long, so the TSA agents were sending everyone to a different security checkpoint halfway down the terminal in the wrong direction to our gate. And Seattle is apparently experimenting at this station with breaking people up based on "special needs", "families", and "seasoned travellers". Now granted, the "families" line did have more friendly and helpful TSA agents, but this still seemed like a lot of additional queueing for not much differentiation of service.


• Now we were through security, and Zachary, Meh, and I really needed to get some lunch before the flight. It had been so long since we'd started our check-in attempt, that I for some reason misremembered the boarding time, so I thought we had 15-20 minutes to eat. We grabbed tasty food at a litte airport restaurant (including a rather crazy triple grilled cheese panini concoction that Zachary loved). I looked down at my watch, and it was the time that I'd remembered that we were scheduled to board. Then I thought, and realized that this was actually only 15 minutes before the flight was due to take off. Hm, tight boarding time. Or perhaps I'd just remembered wrong. Crap. We started heading for the gate, then had to break into a run when we heard the 'final boarding' 5-minute warning for our flight. Of course, the gate was at the furthest possible corner of the terminal. Needless to say, we were the last ones aboard, even behind an unaccompanied minor who was being assisted onto the plane. Thankfully there was plenty of overhead storage, and we got settled in as they closed the door.

Zachary was almost immediately fussy, and of course there isn't a whole lot of room to entertain him. Despite cheerios, star puffs, menus, magazines, toys, and books, he could not get happy, and eventually started that special kind of hysterical and inconsolable crying that particularly upsets mommy, daddy, and of course other passengers. For the next two and a half hours, this was our flight, and there was nothing we could do. He finally fell asleep for 30 minutes, woke up somewhat angry again, and was finally semi-alert and just fussy for the remainder of the 5 1/2 hour flight. Ugh.

His happiest part of the day was the cab ride into Manhattan (also known as the one reason we'd lugged his carseat along, though carseats aren't actually required for cab passengers). In the time since my last visit, most cabs appear to have upgraded to these fancy video screens that can show news, maps, etc. Zachary was happy and screechy throughout the ride, even getting our cabbie to chuckle a bit.

We arrived at the hotel and had a perfect end to the day -- first they couldn't find the reservation (turns out despite my several confirmations that they didn't have the dates right), then they hadn't had us down for a crib (that honor had apparently instead been granted to my mom's room). We got into the room, which itself was nice and even had a second room that would be perfect for him to sleep in -- but then they wheeled in the crib. And I mean wheeled; this was one of those lovely institutional all metal, bottom-to-top-bars cribs of the late 1970s. With a wood plank attached with nails and screws as the base/box spring. And an ill-fitting mattress leaving a gap of a couple of inches to the end of the crib, with that plank exposed. I stuffed a blanket into the gap, but we were both a little wary of the crib. Zachary was moreso -- whether the crib, the new surrounds, or the horrible flight, he was again beside himself pretty quickly, and 20 minutes later, we were all trying to sleep in the same bed in the other room.

Zachary got about half the sleep he usually does, and the next morning we were up by 6 am and ready to wheel around the city. We ended up walking down towards the wedding venue to meet mima, papa, and my friend C for breakfast. Zachary alternated between happy, screechy, and completely monkey-fied as we walked down Avenue of the Americas, but got happier as we made our way into a fancy breakfast place ($3.50 for a muffin? Yikes!). Mima had gotten him a fun puppet that moos whenever you close its mouth (I later figured out that it actually moos some nursery rhymes, you just have to get it to moo semi-rhythmically to determine what they are), and he really enjoyed it.

We parted ways with mima and papa walked back up toward midtown, passing the famous Ghostbusters lions of the New York Public Library on the way. After a nice walk through Central Park (where we walked past the cute Alice in Wonderland statue and enjoyed the shady escape from the 80+ degree temperatures), we met up with friend C (a different C than from breakfast) for lunch at a tasty kosher dairy restaurant, and friend V joined us on his lunch break as well. Afterwards, we hiked uptown to what is generally considered one of New York's top cupcake-specializing bakeries. Meh picked up a 'devil dog' cupcake (a la hostess cupcake, with chocolate with creme filling and vanilla frosting). She ate it later that night and reported that it was somewhat disappointing. From there, I was off to my brother's to help with pre-wedding preparations, and flagged a cab for Meh and Zachary, feeling a bit like a native when I told the cabbie where to take them.

Meh reports that our readership prefers the (ahem) shorter entries, so I'll break things up a bit for the posts on our New York weekend - to be continued!