Monday, August 23, 2010

A tale of two flights (and everything in between)...











On Wednesday we loaded up and set out for our first cross country trip as a whole family. We flew direct from Dulles to Seattle and used miles to upgrade to first class in hopes that things would go smoothly. We were going to be flying out around the same time that our friend Dave was flying out to Germany so we decided to all ride together. Dave got stuck in traffic and ended up getting to our house about 25 minutes late. No big deal though, because we allowed plenty of time. When we got there, Paul decided to drop Dave and I off with the stuff out front and then go park the car. It turned out to be a complicated plan because we were traveling with a ton of stuff and I had the baby, so it was very difficult to get everything up to the counter to check the bags. When I finally got there, they wouldn't let me check the baby items until Paul was there (there was no reason for that since baby items don't count against you). They also wouldn't let me wait at the counter; they insisted that Scarlett and I (and all of our stuff minus the two suitcases they were willing to check) wait across the airport. After my yelling at them about how they expected me to do that with an infant in my arms a passenger tried to help me move everything to the other side. It wasn't starting out to be a very easy trip.

We got through security okay and Scarlett was again fascinated by all of the people and machines. She had a pretty rough start to the day though -- she had been fussier than usual, felt warm, and wasn't going down for her nap. When we got on the plane, she pretty quickly made it clear that it wasn't going to be a fun flight. She screamed and cried for about half an hour before finally falling asleep for an hour. Once she woke up, she was still really fussy. We thought it might be her teeth again. She finally went back to sleep again for another half hour. Scarlett was just really unlike herself -- she was very fussy and squealing and just wouldn't settle down. About half way through the flight, she was sitting on Paul's lap when she started throwing up... LOTS. I tried to catch what I could with a blanket and Paul tried to catch what he could but it was everywhere. I've never seen her throw up that much -- it was everything she had eaten all day long. We changed her and tried to clean up as much as possible (put the blankets, teddy bear, her clothes in a bag; Paul went into the bathroom to try to rinse out his shirt as much as possible) but it smelled pretty bad and Paul and Scarlett were both pretty miserable.

About an hour later, she was sitting on my lap when Paul tried to give her a puff while she was reclining slightly. It must have hit the back of her throat because next thing we knew she made a coughing sound and threw up again (A LOT) all over herself and me. Again we tried to clean up as much as possible. I was so soaked that I had to take both of my shirts off in the bathroom and try to rinse and wring them out in the sink. Now all three of us smelled great and Scarlett was on her last back up outfit. In addition, Paul and I were starting to get pretty worried about her and it was clear that she had a fever. We'd given her some tylenol on the plane, but it was unlikely that she kept any of it down and we were out. When we finally landed and got off the plane, it was pretty clear that we weren't very popular. We were really anxious to get back and change clothes. We got our bags and headed to the car with my mom but when we got there we had a lot of trouble getting the car seat into the car. After about 20 minutes of trying we finally got it in and headed back. By the time we got back to the building, Scarlett was wide awake (she always gets excited about new places) despite it being close to 1 AM our time. We headed to my parents house for a little bit to see everyone (my dad, my sister Brie, and her two kids - Daryoosh and Roxi). We dropped off a bunch of clothes for them to wash for us and then my mom dropped us back at the building before going out to buy some more Tylenol.


Scarlett finally got to bed close to midnight (3 AM our time) and then woke up at 5:45 AM. She was really hungry and quickly downed a 5 ounce bottle of formula and not long after threw up again all over me and the bed. We hoped that it was just that she drank too quickly after not eating much the day before but she still had a temperature. We again cleaned up and threw me and Scarlett in the shower and headed down to breakfast with the family around 8. She seemed a little bit better than the day before, but still not herself. She wasn't very smiley and was just a lot crankier than usual and very clingy. We decided to spend the day at my parents' house. Daryoosh was really great with Scarlett but the house was definitely not baby friendly. Within the first few hours there Scarlett was playing with Daryoosh when a 2 foot tall stack of VHS tapes went crashing down on her head. Needless to say, she was not a very happy baby. We were then playing with her when she crawled under a table and right through puppy pee pads. While Paul and I were trying to eat lunch, my sister decided to let one of her three birds out of his cage to let it fly around the house. It immediately flew over mine and Scarlett's heads right toward Paul's while he was in the kitchen. I had to grab the baby and go outside until the bird was back in its cage because the kids had explained to us before that the bird scratches and bites. She still had a fever, but when we went to give her the Tylenol we realized that despite it being called "Infant" it was only for ages 2-3. We had to go to the store to try to exchange them but the store didn't have any of the infant variety so we had to find another store. When we got back, Scarlett had only slept for about 15 minutes. Murphy's law was in full effect. We decided to leave Scarlett with my mom and sister while we took the kids to the zoo, but by the time we got on the highway it was bumper to bumper traffic and it was clear that we would make it there just in time for it to close. Again, things just weren't going our way, so we headed back and took them to the playground instead. We had a really good time except that a group of teenage boys were taking rocks and throwing them at a bee hive trying to knock it down, despite my yelling at them that there were small children around and people (including me) were allergic and didn't need angry bees. Sigh.

That night we all went to the little Irish bar in "town" for dinner. Things were going okay until the end of the evening when Scarlett threw up again all over Paul this time. We were back to trying to get cleaned up in a public place and tried to get back to the building as soon as possible, which still turned out to be after 11 PM. She went to bed and again woke up around 6 AM, very hungry. She again threw up on me and the bed and we again went through the shower/clean up ritual. We took her to the nurse's station and they basically said she was okay but we also called our pediatrician back home. The pediatrician said it sounded like a virus, so as long as she was making tears when she cried and urinating there wasn't anything a doctor could do. They said that often they just have to vomit the virus out essentially and all we could do was try to give her as much fluid as possible and suggested Pedialyte and dairy free formula and water. They said if we could get a half ounce in her per hour she should be okay. Luckily, she loves Pedialyte (the doctor thought it would be really difficult to get her to drink it) but she wouldn't drink the dairy free formula. It smelled horrible, so we couldn't blame her. In general, she seemed better that day. She was starting to act more like herself and her fever seemed to be lower. My sister and the kids left that day (and took the birds - woo hoo!) so things got considerably more quiet. My mom offered to stay with Scarlett s that Paul and I could go out on a date. We got Scarlett to bed at 7:30 PM and then headed out to the Mexican place in "town" we had a nice time and were back by 11 PM but Scarlett had been asleep the whole time. My mom hung out until around 1 and then we all went to bed. Scarlett slept til 6:30 AM and seemed much more herself so we thought we had turned a corner. We hung out with my parents all day and she seemed much more normal and like she was starting to feel better, although she still wasn't eating much. We had taken the crib to my parents' house so we ended up putting her down there at 7:30 that night and letting her sleep there so that we didn't have to wake her up and move her. She had a pretty good night until she woke up at 4 AM and vomited again after taking a bottle. It didn't bode well for our flight back.
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Is everyone reading this jealous yet? After all we went from dreaded DC weather to the Seattle area where it was 70 and sunny. We flew first class both ways and had a large room (basically a hotel) with free meals available all day long. Scarlett was able to see her "granddad" who we call "grumps" for the first time. And Shonna and I were able to spend a rare night out together. Oh, except for all that stuff that Shonna wrote earlier...

Ok, so I'll talk about things that DID go right, and I won't include the 90 minutes Scarlett slept on the 1st flight, or the occasional smile she gave to our neighbors before "The Incident". For that reason, my post may be a bit shorter than Shonna's. We did get to spend some quality time with the family. Daryoosh and Roxi loved having a baby to play with, ESPECIALLY Daryoosh. He was so good with her, if he lived close, we would put him in our BIT class (Babysitter In Training). I have a feeling he would ask us before we asked him! Roxi was also great, but she is only 6 and would still rather spend her quality time with us. Who can blame her? :) We do wish we could spend more time with Scarlett's cousins, but its tough to get past the 2500 mile distance. As Shonna mentioned, we did attempt to take them to the zoo, but we timed it too close to rush hour, and in the Seattle area, rush hour = 6 hours (I think its the time difference...). Anyone who complains about DC traffic hasn't seen the 25-40 mile stretch on I5 that is stop and go from just after 2pm to well past 7. We were able to quickly alter our plans and spend time with them at a local park. Besides the bee incident, we had a great time. We went to the playground (lots of climbing and spinning). Daryoosh and I then played baseball on a regulation pro-style field while Shonna and Roxi played various versions of patty cake (I liked my game better:) Afterwards, Daryoosh took us on a "hike" through brush, vines, fallen trees... fun terrain, especially with most of us wearing flip flops. He is becoming a "guy" right before our eyes. He knew EXACTLY where he was going even though he didn't have a clue... but he sounded convincing, or at least he was convinced! Anyway, when we returned from the hike, we were pleasantly surprised to see Scarlett and Nonni sitting on a bench along the path waiting for us. Scarlett's face lights up whenever she sees us, and makes a bad day great, and a great day even better! We all returned to the house, and later headed to the Irish Restaurant mentioned earlier. The next day, aunt Brie and the cousins drove off to California. All 3 loved spending time with Scarlett. Brie volunteered to watch her as much as possible, and Daryoosh is a natural. Roxi also spent plenty of time playing with her and sharing toys. It was tough to see them leave, and Roxi hugged us for what seemed like 15 minutes.

Of course the grandparents loved spending time with Scarlett. We knew Nonni would spend every waking moment with her, but Grumps was the same way. He even went so far as to make goofy faces constantly and talk in his "baby" voice. You know that voice guys have that only comes out when talking to an infant. Very cool. Nonni's big night, or actually morning was our last one (not including the time she had while we were at the park). Everyone loves Shonna, but unfortunately when she is near Scarlett, Scarlett doesn't want to be held by anyone else, at least not for any length of time. So when Shonna and I left Scarlett at Nonni and Grumps for the night, she was able to spend a good part of the morning with her. As much as we missed seeing Scarlett in the morning, the fact that she and Nonni were able to spend some QT together made it worthwhile.

I almost forgot to mention one other event. Scarlett (we) went to our first "hoedown", which consisted of country music, good food, a horse (her first horseback ride), a fake cow to milk, and a bunch of bandannas. Scarlett got the hang of the reigns, as you can see in the picture Scarlett's piggyback ride. With all of these things going on, can you guess what Scarlett's favorite sight or object was? Yep, it was the balloons used as decor. We thought she was going to bite or grip through them, which would have caused her to never like balloons again... but then again, a big POP would have been expected considering the events of the long weekend.

One last positive: Our plane ride back! Wow what a 180. Our flight was delayed by 20 minutes, which turned out to be a good thing. I was able to get her to sleep 10 minutes before we boarded and she slept for over an hour. We did get a few looks this time, but it was a combination of "uh oh" with a bit of "awww look at the cute baby sleeping", and a little "I hope she stays that way". The ONLY negative came from Shonna. She was opening a bag of chips and must have caught her fingernail in the packaging. Basically ripped it in half. I ran around looking for water, napkins, and band-aids. Finally one of the attendants located a 1st aid kit (took them 5 minutes to find it which was comforting. Safety first!). Shonna patched herself up with about 5 strips, and we were back in business. Scarlett woke the first time grinning from ear to ear. Mommy was still asleep but I believe her spidey senses kicked in and she woke a few minutes later. Scarlett was laughing and flirting with our neighbors and flight attendants, ate a little, then an hour later she passed out again. Rinse and repeat, she worked in the same pattern one more time. Total sleep time 3+ hours, she ate, played, and more importantly, nothing came out of her mouth (or anywhere else;). What a fantastic ending to a long trip! The nasty looks we received during our departing flight turned into multiple compliments and smiles from our first-class neighbors. She did "blowout" right before we returned to the car, but that's a good thing. Great timing- well after we got off the plane, and just before shoving her into the car seat for a 30-45 minute ride home. She was taking quite a bit of fluid during the ride home, probably to make up for the long weekend of dehydration. She needed it. We finally returned home after grabbing some Rio Grande togo. I grabbed a bunch of luggage, Shonna lifted Scarlett out of the car seat and we headed to the house..... phew.
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THEN BAAAAAMMMMMM all of that fluid exploded on Shonna one last time.
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Scarlett hasn't lost anything since then, knock on wood. She seems to be doing just fine now.

1 comment:

  1. What an adventure!!! I loved all the photos... especially the one of Scarlett on Shonna's shoulders!! that cracked me up! And another of my favorites is the one where she and Shonna are riding the horse.. the expression on her face is adorable. Looks like the family had fun! Sorry you had to go through all the vomiting episodes, I hope she is much better this week. Do you know where she could have caught this virus? Were you guys affected by it?

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