We are in a waiting pattern at the airport. Thank God we’re actually in the airport and not on the plane. There’s ice on the runways in Kansas City and for some reason they’re having trouble removing it. It’s always cold in Kansas City (except for the couple weeks in summer where it turns to blazing hot…then it gets cold again.). My point is they should know how to clear the ice. Maybe it’s the 25 mph winds that are making it difficult.
This morning has been ONE ADVENTURE AFTER ANOTHER. I woke up at 0500 for a 0630 departure from the house to fly out of Orlando at 0930. After getting ready I woke Reagan up and left her to get dressed while I woke up Ashlyn. I walk into Ashlyn’s room with the light from the hallway. I looked into her pack n play and could see liquid in one corner. This did not come from her south end, it came from her north end. She had vomited sometime during the night and went back to sleep. I’m sure I would have heard her if she had started crying at night (I say that, but who knows if I hear her every time she cries at night). She’s in a great mood though. I pick her up and she’s smiling and cooing, vomit on her clothes, in her hair and on her face. We get her cleaned up and put her in the chair for breakfast. I feed her the normal: oatmeal mixed with apple juice. I thought for sure the oatmeal would be good for her stomach.
We get everything and everyone in the car and back out of the garage. That’s when we realize the garage will close, but it won’t lock. It’s a manual door so Du shuts it from the inside and leaves through the house. We start driving and I barely get this sentence out: “Du, be prepared to pull over if Ashlyn starts throwing up again.” Right then we hear the gagging and lurching in the back. Every bit of oatmeal came back out. It hadn’t even had time to digest. Sorry I’m being so graphic, it’s so fresh in my mind (oops, pun not intended). We haven’t even left our street so we turned around and went back to the house. We got her cleaned up and put her in the “just in case” outfit I had put in my carry on.
We head out again. Our thirty minute cushion is now gone. I guess this is why it was there. We get near the airport and realize we haven’t filled up the rental car with gas. We have to decide whether to pay the outrageous fee with the car company for them to fill the tank or turn around and go fill it up ourselves. I know I’ve said I’m cheap, but in circumstances like this I’m all for convenience…and for keeping our flight. We make the decision to go find fuel and ask Jeeves (our nav device) for the nearest gas station. He leads us to the nearest gas station and Du begins pumping. We should have noticed that there were no signs with gas prices outside this station. We did not notice that. Fortunately Du noticed the numbers on the price of the gas spinning around like the Price is Right wheel. This station was charging $4.50 per gallon. Du stops the fill up and we procede down the street to look for another station. The next station Jeeves wants us to go to doesn’t exist. On to station number three.
Meanwhile I’m envisioning the line at security in the airport. When we landed two weeks ago the line to go through security was miles long with thousands of people. I’m sure it took each of those people hours of waiting to get through. This was all I could see as we were driving farther and farther away from the airport. All our cushion time is gone and now we’re eating into TSA time.
We find a gas station that’s reasonably priced, fill up and head back to the airport. All is well while we find the rental car return and turn it over. Then comes the fun part of hauling all our bags to ticketing. While on our way to ticketing the friendliest lady ever comes up next to us with one of those bag carts with no bags on it. She’s pushing it around to carry her purse and a plastic bag. This is why I’m convinced it’s a God thing. She offers to let us put my suitcase on it (the heaviest one we have…no comments please) because we’re going the same way. When we get to ticketing she gives us the cart because she only has her two bags. AND then the Southwest lady who’s standing at the beginning of the serpentine line up to the counter sees us. She asks if the baby we have is a lap baby. Yes, she is.
Ok, please go to that line over there. That line over there only had five people in it. Another God thing. I don’t know what the difference was, but I was for once grateful for a lap baby (even if she’s potentially hazardous to our health).
As we leave ticketing we wonder if the plane will depart on time. We had checked the weather last night and knew there was an icy-windy storm moving through. We were dreading leaving the 70-80 degree weather to go back to below zero. Next to come would be the line for security. Happily the lines were a manageable length, even if our plane was going to take off on time.
So, here we sit. Ashlyn’s already taken a nap and is crawling around trying to get into our things and other people’s things. Reagan was coloring peacefully…until she noticed a bar near the floor underneath the dataport table. She decided she’d do some kind of swinging gymnatics on it and is now crying because she fell back and hit her head on the floor. I heard and felt the thud.
The plane has been delayed indefinitely and we’re thinking it will be canceled. Does that mean we have to get all our luggage back? Can’t they keep it for us and put it on the plane we do finally get on? I don’t want responsibility for all that crap cute summer clothing and wonderful souvenirs until we land in KC.
The good thing is that I can catch up on the blogging. Maybe I’ll be able to post some pics from the last week. And thanks to Heather I have now got the video monster tamed…I think.
Not So SAHM 
Hey… did you know that if you’re military you can go through the security line for first-class? Found that out when we flew home for Christmas… BIG time saver!
Wow, that’s good to know! I didn’t even know they had a first-class check in. Still here, status unknown.
Great stories, sweetie. They make me laugh. Although I find myself in the position once again to have to correct the record 🙂
1. We had a very nice fall in KC this year – nearly 3 full months of temps in the 60s-70s.
2. This was a great rental house and indeed a great deal. Vicki wants me to ensure you all know that we do recommend this company and this deal. I just have to point out a few things that could be improved. 🙂 The builders of this particular house did go the cheap route on a few things and their routine maintenance isn’t as proactive as I’d like. They have a sign next to each toilet telling the guest that US sewer lines are half the size of those around the world. Let me tell you that these lines are half the size of a normal US line. I guess the builders wanted to save on PVC pipe! Oh by the way, there are threats of extra charges for anything that is “messed up” around the house when you leave, e.g. clogged toilet, A/C set below 75, etc. etc. As for the garage door, it was a manual door with the standard cable and latch mechanism on both sides so when you slid the door down from the outside it would lock into place. One of the latches was already disconnected so we were already one down. This morning, we were supposed to put the key into the key lockbox before we left (or face a $50 charge) and as I slid the garage down (for the 15th time this trip with no issues, pop! I hear a screw (or other metallic items) pop out and fly across the garage. Ahhh! Long story short, I couldn’t get the door to lock so locked the interior door but we have an unlocked garage. I don’t want to get fined but as they aren’t open on the weekend or probably Mon, we’ll call Tues a.m. and see what happens. 🙂
3. I had been looking for a gas station on our 30 minute trip to the airport but as Florida has a ton of toll roads and on some of them you get charged the full amount everytime you exit the toll road as well as shortly after you enter the toll road, I decided to wait until the airport exit to stop for gas. Bad move. Unfortunately, there weren’t any on the south side of the airport but on Jeeves Vicki saw there was some north of the airport (no toll roads required) and since we still had 2 hours, 4 minutes until departure, I wanted to save the money. Despite going to 3 gas stations, it only cost us 15 minutes (total travel and gas time). Not bad and we saved a ton of money by using Geico, errr going to an off airport gas station.
4. Reagan – ahh, Reagan. I need to get her some shoulder pads and a helmet. I see her sitting on this cross bar people watching and I saw her start to scoot back. I said “Reagan, be careful” as I saw the possibility of her doing the dead parrot move and bonking her head on the lightly carpeted concrete floor. She says “yes, Daddy” and within 2 seconds proceeds to pull the dead parrot move. Lots of crying, holding, and a trip to the bathroom for kleenex. Should I have stopped her? Well, I thought she understood the safety implications and I don’t want to control her every action. She needs to use operational risk management and understand it. However, since I saw the huge potential for injury, I probably should have taken control and explained this ORM issue to her. Well, no permanent damage (that I know of) and I know she learned a lesson and I’ll remember this next time.
5. Ashlyn – here is a kid that is going to be tough. She pukes a few times, and just keeps on crawling. Doesn’t even wipe it off. She just asks for more food and Powerade (by pointing and grunting). She then crawls right to the edge of the carpet and after Reagan (mother #2) and I prompt her, she stops. She can tell from my tone not to proceed into the tiled walkway. So what does she do? She lifts up her leg and puts her toe onto the tile. I say no and she pulls it back. She then puts it back out there and looks at me. Then, she puts her hand out there and looks at me. Although I say “no”, she probably thinks I only mean not now, not “no” for good as about 1 minute later she moves 12″ into the walkway, sits down and looks at me with that big, cute grin she has. I pick her up and she laughs. I love that little pumpkin.
OK. it’s 1330 and we’ve been here for 5 1/2 hours. The kids are doing great. Vicki and I are catching up on some internet and email. The Patriot (patriotpost.us) is a great site.