Documentation of fatherhood insanity: August - Lots and lots of plane rides

Things I have Learned

Sammy has started “parroting” everything we say. I only really started to worry about this about 45 minutes into our car ride home from DC while listening to Louis CK. After the 42^nd “f” word the guilt overwhelmed me and I turned it off. Playing Louis CK with your child in the car - Worst parenting move ever?

One of the best things Sammy says is his “bye bye”. It is perfectly enunciated and has several meanings. Here are the various definitions:

1. I’m ready to leave (often spoken while climbing into his stroller and sitting down)

2. You are leaving so – See you later

3. Someone else is leaving

4. I am leaving

We love when he says “byebye” to other people. But unfortunately most people do not get to hear it. I think this is Sammy’s idea of a practical joke. Without fail, he will wait until we’ve already left and are out of earshot of our departed friends. Then he will softly utter his byebye. We’ll get there.

Most kids love Elmo. However, Sammy is truly involved in a deep love affair with Elmo’s friend Abby Cadabby. We still can’t get him to watch TV but he does grab the Sesame street books and yell “Abby!!! Abby!!!” for extended periods of time.

Sammy is really getting into music. He finally started dancing a few weeks back. Now every morning he gets up and points to the speakers so he can bust a move to Ziggy Marley (random, I know – but a great adult friendly kids album called “Family Time” for all you parents out there). He’s also been humming music! My only concern is that he’s only going to want to listen to reggae. There’s only SO much reggae I can take.

Sammy is also proving to be like his mom. I think we can officially declare his favorite food being cheese. Whenever I take out string cheese or even say the word, he starts yelling “CHEEEEEEEEEEEESE!! CHEEEEESSE!!!

He also somehow knows to say cheese when his picture is being taken. I love that we are starting to understand him now.

Ok. Here’s something no one should attempt. 3 flights in 4 days with a 15 month old. Period. There’s just no good thing about that scenario.

Sammy showed us a new side of his personality on those flights. In the comics and stories there’s Jekyll and Hyde, Bruce Banner and The Hulk. Meet Samson and “Plane Samson”. One is a cuddly cute friendly child. The other is a lethal destructo out to make you and the general public miserable.

It’s official. We’ve become “those people” on the plane. On the flight from Detroit to Montreal, Sammy was freaking out so much that I decided I stopped caring what the rest of the passengers thought. He broke me. Sorry to everyone else, they can shove it.

The Detroit flight was so bad that it gets 2 lines in this post. In trying to contain Sammy for landing (he has to sit on an adult’s lap) I was:

a) Sweating

b) In pain from being repeatedly elbowed in the neck by a strong, squirming child

c) Did I mention tired? Because I was unbelievably tired.

Nap tease

Sammy believes in the motto “I’ll be good for everyone but Mom and Dad.” He decided that “plane” week would be the same week that he would test us. Making absolutely nothing easy. However, with the babysitter in Michigan, my parents, Kenia - basically everyone but us got this little angel. I am grateful that this was short lived. Yikes. I was starting to feel like the boy who cried wolf.

You know your child is getting older by their level of dirtiness. The older, the dirtier I think. He’s like a magnet. Or a dirt vacuum. It’s bad when you literally have pangs of guilt on a day when they go to bed without a bath because they've gotten so insanely dirty you can see a thin coat on him.

There is this looming, scary, terrifying change that I can feel coming. I keep thinking it’s here but it’s not here yet. It is the impending doom of the change to 1 nap. It’s like being trapped in the suspense moment in a scary movie that never ends. I love the 2 naps!

What’s scarier than Danielle and I flying with Sammy? Well, it’s me taking a 2 hour flight with Sammy solo. The fear/panic I was experiencing led to some serious strategic work to survive this potential nightmare. Somehow we made it through the whole thing in one piece – no crying, no freak-outs – perfect! I’ve never been so tired though. Here is how it went:

Step 1. Pack enough finger food to last the whole flight.

Step 2. Prepare two squeezy fruit packs for take-off and landing.

Step 3. Pack as many books as will fit in the bag – make sure the books have pop-up or tabs for Sammy to play with for long periods of time.

Step 4. Pack bagels (like rawhide for kids) that he can chew for long periods of time.

Step 5. Cheerios, cheerios, cheerios

Step 6. beg flight attendant for an extra seat if there’s an empty one (key)

Step 7. pray

The worst moment of my solo flight? Nothing to do with Sammy. It was when I asked the flight attendant how much longer we had left (I didn’t know it was a 2 hour flight). I thought we had about 20 minutes left. She told me there was 1 more hour. How the hell was I going to survive that?? 1 hour! I broke into a sweat. I essentially treated it like my hike to Macchu Piccu. Baby steps. I survived that flight in 5 minute increments. Sammy had a blast though.

While running around the airport (and therefore having me chase him around) Sammy found a pay phone and started talking into it. It occurs to me that he will probably never use a payphone in his life. He may not even know what one is!

Coming next week: Monica’s wedding!

Important statistics we are keeping track of:

- Number of states/provinces visited in the last 2 weeks: 4 (Michigan, Quebec, Ohio, Kentucky)

- Number of flights taken in the last 2 weeks: 5 (!!!!)

- Number of two-bath days: 1

- Number of in-flight meltdowns: 2

- Number of poops taken during flight when the fasten seatbelt sign is on and we were confined to our seats for 15 minutes: 1 (and the guy next to us was not sympathetic – instead he stuffed his nose in his shirt for 15 minutes trying like a ______ to make us feel guilty. 1) it didn’t work. 2) Thanks for understanding dude – it wasn’t THAT bad).

Some of my favorite new words of the week:

- Doggy

- Woof Woof

- Honey

- Peach

- Neigh (horse sound)

- Up (or uppy)

- Apple

- Banana (or “nana”)

- Bubbles

- Bus
- Johnny
- Tree
-

Pictures for your amusement

Just a bunch of guys taking a stroll (Johnny and Sammy)

Very important (according to mom) that Sammy gets the best view of downtown East Lansing as possible.

All we wanted was for Sammy to take a nap on the plane. That clearly did not happen. Instead, we got "Plane Sammy" . And then he promptly fell asleep after he got off. With Cheerios in his hand.