The One with all the Running

So before I get to where I left off, I'd like to tell another story about a trip to San Francisco.

When I was pregnant with Max, Andrew owned his own company and had planned on taking a few weeks off after I gave birth to spend as a new family.  Well I didn't have the most story book birth experience.  (Jonah's birth experience was as close to perfect as anyone could ask for.  I only wish that every first time mom could experience what I did with Jonah.)

Aaaanyway...(I say that a lot in my story telling), Max was three weeks early, and Andrew had a photo shoot scheduled in Minneapolis or one of those cities in the middle of the country.  He was ready to cancel so that he could be with us but I insisted that he keep the photo shoot.  So instead we decided to take a trip to San Fran during my maternity leave.  I mean if we're all going to be hanging out doing nothing but spending time together, we might as well do it in a fantastic city.

So when Max was 10 weeks old, we flew to San Fran.  The trip was awesome.  Max was great on the plane and during all the walking and we even had a babysitter one night and went out for a fabulous dinner.  It was a really great vacation....until we came home.  I remember sitting at the gate and our plane was obviously late and they finally made an announcement that the plane was late and listed all the final destinations that needed to come up to be re-routed.  Columbus was not on the list.  But we knew we had a tight connection in Phoenix...and I had to check the stroller so I went up and asked.  She was one of the rudest and most annoying people.  She looked at me and said.."Was Columbus on the list?"  I said no and she said then we did not need to be re-routed.  I looked at the girl behind her and she agreed.  So I checked the stroller.  Looking back, I should have pushed a little more punched both of them.  So of course you know the end of this story.  We get to Phoenix and me and my 10 week old ran.  We ran as fast as a new mother holding a 10 week old could run.  AB stayed back and waited for the stroller.  Once he got the stroller, he ran.  I could see the gate up ahead...two nicer ladies waving their arms..."hurry, hurry".  I got to the gate and said..."my husband is right behind me.  He had to wait for the stroller."  They told me that I could get on but that they couldn't wait for him.  Ha!  So you expect me to get on the plane with my 10 week old and leaving my husband here?! That's funny.  I waited and waited...and then they closed the gate.  And then I waited and waited and then we saw him running.  I started walking toward him so that he would at least stop running.  We couldn't believe it.  They would not hold the plane for us.  I seriously wanted to punch those first two ladies.  We went to the counter and explained what happened.  There were no other flights that day.  We had to spend the night.  They put us up in a hotel and gave us some food money and some incidental money.  And then I realized...I had packed my breast pump and didn't have it with me.  Anyone that has ever breastfed knows how horrible this is for an exclusively pumping breast feeding momma.  WORST! NIGHT! EVER!  I tried my hardest to get Max to feed.  I tried whatever I could to relieve my pain.  But nothing worked.  I had a hard time with milk production and this was no help at all.  Moral of the story, always carry on your pump.  You never know what could happen.

Sooooo, back to our moving story.  We get to the airport and there were again some delays.  And we had another close connection.  I started to get worried.  I did not want a repeat performance.  And we were flying through Detroit!  At least when we got stuck in Phoenix, my friend James came over for a visit.  But Detroit?!  Argh.  We finally got off the ground in Columbus.  It was short flight but we were worried.  Once we were closer to Detroit the flight attendant started giving out gate locations.  We scouted out our gate on the airport map...it was going to be tight!  We put a plan together.  I would stay with Jonah and wait for the stroller.  Andrew and Max would run.  It's funny.  We had this plan of grabbing some lunch and taking it on the plane.  Didn't happen.  As soon as I saw our stroller, I strapped in my 25lb child and ran.  My flip flops made a really annoying "clip clop" noise and it echoed throughout the airport.  It was so loud and annoying that everyone would stop and get out of my way.  Just imagine hearing a really loud "clop, clop, clop, clip, clop" and turning and seeing a 30ish (I like to think) mother running while pushing her bushy top blonde boy in a crappy stroller.  Ha!  I guess I would get out of her way too.  We had to run from one concourse to another.  There is a shuttle tram but it wasn't there when we got to it...so we kept running.  Jonah saw the tram at one point and pointed and said "choo choo".  Too bad we didn't get to ride it.  We got to the gate and they were announcing last call for boarding.  There were around 8 people standing around trying to get on our flight stand by and she said if we did not board, they would give up our seats.  Shew....we had BARELY made it! 

We were off to our new home.  Sweaty, tired, hungry and with a leg cramp.  But dude we didn't have to spend the night in Detroit!

These two crashed once we got off the ground.

PS - I added a few pics on the last post.