Of course, Talana made me think twice about this! She said to me one day before we left- Don't worry! My Mom will let Riley cry it out for 30 minutes then smile at you the next day and say he went right to sleep! I was like what?! I don't know if I can do that!! :) Suzanne assured me this wouldn't be the case! Plus, I know Gary is the rocking master! So I figured worst case, Riley would get rocked to sleep! In the end, he went to sleep easily (so they said) because he was worn out from trying to be the center of attention at Kyle's birthday party! We found out he LOVES Spanish rice and tortillas too! He must have eaten his body weight in that stuff, so I'm sure that helped lull him to sleep too!
I strategically chose our flights - the ones with only 10 people booked on them. I figured it's a 50 minute flight, so if he screamed the entire time - it would only bother 10 people not a flight full of 50-70. And I figured they could sit us away from everyone too. This was easy to accomplish because we flew out Saturday am and back Sunday on Memorial Day weekend.
Man! Talk about an ordeal to get out of the house on a normal day....then think of the ordeal to get out of the house for a flight and overnight stay!! This was also Riley's 1st overnight trip away from home! But we made it! The only thing I forgot that was super obvious was his pj's, but we improvised for that! He did have his own roller bag! And it was only for an overnight trip! We even made it through the TSA checkpoint with the baby food (jars) and bottles no problem.
Riley & Dad on his 1st flight. (I couldn't get a good picture of both of them! They are the 2 worst people to get to look at the camera AND smile!)
And Riley did GREAT! He's just in that phase where he's a busy body, so it was definitely a full time job for Kelly and I to pass him back and forth and keep him entertained. And he did want to bamm-bamm the guy's seat in front of us at one point, but other than that he did GREAT! On BOTH flights, he fell asleep 10 minutes before landing! His ears didn't seem to bother him at all, but I did push his paci on him during take off and landing. He totally worked over the flight attendant on the return flight with his charm. He was laughing and flirting with her! She was loving it!
Once we were in Lubbock, Suzanne was AWESOME! She had borrowed a car seat, stroller and pack n play from her neighbors so that made our trip A LOT easier too! I can't imagine how difficult it would have been to try to travel with all that stuff too!! I'm sure we'd have made it, but it was nice not to have to struggle with all that the 1st time too! We mainly just wanted to see how Riley was going to do. We learned we'll definitely take his car seat for a longer flight (plus we'll probably need it on the other end), but he's too big (25 lbs!) and rowdy for us to try to hold the entire time!
I wish I had videoed him looking out the window as we took off - you could tell he was taking it all in - like what the heck is this?! Especially all the clouds he was mesmerized!
A picture just doesn't capture the essence of how he was taking it all in, but this will have to do!
He was his usual laid back self while we were there too. Not being home didn't bother him at all! He was entertained by tearing up the Skymall magazine for an hour in their living room floor one day - again - the little things! Who needs toys?!
We also got to meet Talana's new niece - Clara Beth. She was only 2 weeks old! I wanted to get a picture of her and Riley together, but the time I thought about it she was sleeping and we didn't want to disturb her with rambunctious Riley!
I decided I'm going to train to run a half marathon with Talana and some other girls on November 15th of this year! This is my public statement of that, so now I HAVE to do it! First, I have to get back to running PERIOD and build up a base of 3 miles 3 times a week, then we start training for the half marathon 10 weeks out. I have the summer to do that, but I had planned on starting this week and I only got 1 run/walk session in! (I have a good excuse this week, but we'll get to in a later post!)
Anyway - Riley's 1st flight was a success! I don't know if we'll do it again before he's done with baby food though! Having to pack jars and bottles was a little crazy! After he's a year old (only TWO months!!), he'll be on cow's milk and big people food so that'll be a little more manageable. Of course, he'll be mobile then so he probably won't be as manageable!! ha!
Riley AFTER his 2nd flight! He didn't wake up when we put him into the car seat either! He was OUT!
We also firmed up that we'll be taking a family trip to Maui in December with the Hamilton's too. Kelly and I have traveled with them in the past - like I said they're our Lubbock family. This time GiGi is going to tag along too. She deserves a vacation after all she's done to help us this 1st year. Plus, we'll probably need some backup to keep up with Riley!
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