Heading to Washington D.C.
Nikki and I got up bright and early at 4:45 am to head to D.C. Let me rephrase: we set the alarm for 4:45 but actually got up around 4:00. Yes, FOUR. It was Daylight Savings Time and I didn’t turn the alarm clock back. I’m just used to my computers setting the time for me so I didn’t think about it. NUTS. On the bright side, we had plenty of time to feed Zaiden and finish getting ready to go. We had a nice leisurely morning before hopping in Black Beauty (that’s Nikki’s Vue for those that don’t recognize the name) and heading to Starbucks (and you thought I was going to say the airport, didn’t you?).
Getting to the airport was no problem. Getting through security was kinda fun, though. We had to break down the stroller and send it through the metal detector separately from the car seat. Of course I had bane (my laptop — I like to name inanimate objects if you didn’t notice) so it had to go through by itself. We had a whole procession of things going through security. I saw two (maybe three?) people change lines behind us. It was quite the ordeal. heh … in addition to all the stuff we had we had to declare all our liquids — things like breast milk, children’s tylenon, baby oradent, and a small vile of nitroglycerine (just kidding, DHS!). Good thing they didn’t check my shoes — they would have found the gum I stepped in and accused me of sneaking on a plastic explosive. Crikey! I snapped some photos of the family while waiting to board (and a good, healthy McDonald’s breakfast to chase down the Starbucks.
As usual, links to the photo album are from the cute shot of the family, above. Once we were in the air, Zaiden was OK. We had him drinking anything we could during take off in the hopes his ears would “pop” (for those that don’t know — swallowing is what triggers the air in your ear canal to equalize when the air pressure changes). He seemed OK and wasn’t crying or getting fussy or anything so I can only assume this did the trick. For most of the flight he was OK. He’s not much for sleeping during the day so he didn’t sleep very much on the plane. He did start to get fussy and such so we tried the ‘ole “a tad of baby-benedryl” like our nurse suggested. He barely let it touch his lips and he lolled to sleep. Nikki and I spent the next 45 minutes terrified that we had just done something horrible to him. He seemed OK the entire time he was asleep and he woke up after his short nap. He has been a.o.k. ever since so I assume he just has his mother’s tolerance for drugs. Maybe we’ll just let him take a wiff of it, next time, rather than actually drinking it. EESH!
Once on the ground, we collected our bags and found a shuttle from Baltimore Airport to our hotel. Here was our first introduction to utter rudeness that we experienced while in DC. I was helping the driver with our luggage and such while Nikki was hopping in the van. The other passengers took the first couple rows of seats and just sat there. Nikki was wrestling with the car seat and crawling (not joking here) over the seats to get into the back. None of them offered to help let alone switch seats. They acted as if Nikki and Zaiden weren’t even there! Oh! I was so mad! I couldn’t help because I was behind her on the curb and there wasn’t any way for me to get in to help. It took Zaiden about 20 minutes of incessant crying to get to sleep and we didn’t feel apologetic at all to those schmucks. ARGH!
And driving in Baltimore/DC? Are you KIDDING me? It’s worse than being in the car with Ajay — and if you haven’t had the pleasure of being a passenger with my sister-in-law behind the wheel let me just tell you that you are missing out on a terrifying experience. It’s one thing to not turn on your blinker to change lanes — but the folks here don’t even look to see if there’s a car before doing so! Criminy!
After a white-knuckling car ride from the airport to the University of Maryland (one of the other passenger’s destinations) and then to our hotel, we were ready to relax. We just “kicked it” in the room for a while (you’ll see pictures Nikki took of Zaiden and me). Then we went across the street for dinner. They were kinda busy so we just ordered it to go and brought it back to our room. It was SCRUMPTUOUS.
As you’ll read in the next few posts, the rest of our trip wasn’t so frought with rude people nor terrifying car rides. So, in closing, Zaiden’s first plane ride went just smashingly for him with a 45 minutes of panic for Nikki and me. All in all, it was a fun day and we ended it looking forward to taking Zaiden around our nation’s capital!