elisalou designs

Last night I rolled in from a crazy trip to the East and barely had time to step foot in the door before we we were scurrying around trying to find last minute school supplies and get the kids ready for their first day today.

Remind me to never travel right before school starts.

My crazy trip started last week when Blake, Cole, Eva and I went down to the farm.  We stayed a couple days and then the boys and I hopped a flight to NYC on Thursday, leaving Eva and the dogs at the farm.

We sit on the tarmac forever because we were over our weight limit so they decided to burn fuel rather than make people get off.  We sat for about 45 minutes.

We had a layover in Detroit and of course the plane was late getting in so we had to run from one end of the airport to the other, only to find the plane that was to take us to NYC was late as well.

We start to load that plane when the whole line comes to a stand still.  Apparently one of the passengers is freaking out because the flight attendants are trying to make her check her small suitcase at the gate (the plane was at capacity).  She starts to yell that if she wanted to check the bag, she would have.  In the meantime she is still trying to cram it in the overhead above her seat.

The line can’t move around her because she is large, and blocks the aisle.  Finally she pulls out some guys bag, shoves hers in- and then starts walking up and down the aisle trying to find a place to put it.  People still can’t board and they are starting to yell things at her.  Finally she takes the guys bag to the front of the plane and says “check this bag”.  And then tells the guy, your bag is getting checked.

The guy can’t believe it.

She goes back to her seat and says, “this is just crazy” and the woman behind me yells “you’re crazy!”  People are yelling, “thanks for holding up the whole plane!”

The flight attendants are P.O.’ed to say the least.

We take off and all is well.  We land at La Guardia and meet up with Andy and Austin, who flew in from home.

The next few days go well, except for Cole almost drowning in the Westfield pool because he jumped into deep water thinking it was shallow and then panicked.

We meet friends from home, we see a Broadway show, we have lots of yummy dinners, go to the Jersey shore, spend time with family.

But towards the end of the trip Cole starts to drag.  A couple hours before the show I make him take a nap and he wakes up feverish and croupy.  We find some medicine, dose him up and he is good.

On Sunday we fly home, we are flying home on different planes again and Blake and Cole and I have to go back to the farm to get the dogs and Eva and Austin and Andy are flying home.

But we don’t get to leave.  Flights were being canceled and delayed left and right.  And of course they never tell you that your flight is going to be canceled (event though when it has been delayed for 5 hours I am sure they know).  Cole starts dragging when we get to the airport, his eyes got glassy, he felt hot and immediately fell asleep, first on the floor (because it was packed and when a seat came open, 5 people would run for it) but eventually on a chair.  I have no medicine for him because they won’t let you take liquid on the plane so I had to check it.

People were getting grumpy, yelling at the airport workers, yelling at each other.  One mom there with two small boys was having a hard time keeping them entertained and at one point an old man that looked a lot like a grumpy Henry Fonda said to his wife (really loud in front of the mom) “That little kid there is a pain in the ass!!”  I thought the mom was going to cry.

At that point we realize that we aren’t going anywhere.  I try to call Delta, they tell me they will call me when they find another flight for me (what?  they didn’t even have my phone number.  At one point the guy on the phone asked if I could just check the internet for another flight).  I wait in line for an hour to find out when I can get on a flight.  After waiting and finally getting to the front, they tell us that we have been rescheduled on a flight the next day and we need to get out of line, this line was for the flight that was canceled for mechanical problems, not for weather like ours.  I call Delta again and talk to someone else.  They tell me I am flying out at 9am the next morning.

They tell us to go wait in another line to turn in our tickets and get new ones.  I go get in the other line.  At this point Cole wanders over and tells me he is going to puke.

I move him towards a garbage can and finally get to the front of the line.  They can’t issue me a new ticket- I will just have to come early the next morning and get it before the flight.

By this point it is late.  Andy is in a different terminal, his flight is delayed by an hour but he gets to go home

I head off to find a taxi.  Holding back tears.  And a sick kid.

We get a taxi and I ask him to take me to Wal Greens so I can get meds for Cole, I give him the address.  He doesn’t speak English.  He tells me he can only take me to the hotel.

I go to the hotel, and find out they have adult Advil in the giftshop.  I buy some, three toothbrushes, and head for the room.

I have no idea what the dose is for a 40 lb 7 year old but I bite a pill in half, push it into a recess peanut butter cup, and offer it to him.  He feels so bad he doesn’t protest.

Within 20 minutes he is feeling good, playing his dsi, and I am about to drop.  It is close to midnight, we have a wake-up call at 6:30.  I try to sleep.  In my clothes.

Of course I wake up every hour, because the last thing I want to do is miss the flight.

I drag the kids back to the airport at the crack of dawn and the line is wrapped around the building.  We wait.  And wait.

We get on our flight.  But it’s delayed.  Weather.  We get to Detroit and have 15 minutes to get on connecting flight.  I don’t even have tickets for the connecting flight.  We run.

We make our flight.  We get to the farm.  We see Eva.  Lots of smiles.

We pile into our car for the 3 hour drive home.  It was a blur.  I was so tired.

The boys were so good.  Eva was good.

We are home.

New York it was fun but I’m not doing that again for a while.