Up in the air Jr Birdman, up in the air, upside down...

Travel day! My first thought is, thank goodness I am not pregnant! I traveled so much with Braden in the past few years and most ALL of it was done pregnant. The ease at which I can lift luggage is amazing, it was such freedom. Traveling with two, however does bring up a whole slew of other issues and having Tristan strapped to me, well that is another story. I had originally planned to write a big long essay about my travel day... but I am still WAY tired, so I am just going to bullet point it!

• Security: I was carrying some breast milk and did not want it to go through the x-ray machine. Breast milk is extremely sensitive and should not be put into a microwave (since it breaks down the composition) I believe it shouldn't go through an x-ray machine either. When I asked to have it hand checked, they agreed but then the woman had to add "Oh Hon, the machine is safe - they do a really good job updating us on anything potentially harmful, and we haven't heard anything... so it won't hurt the milk any". I thought OH okay, since you haven't heard anything I'll just send my child's only form of nutrition through a machine that can look right through solid objects!!! Thanks anyway - I don't take advice given out by the TSA.... I stopped listening when they band fingernail clippers!


• That being said, I love flying out of the Abilene airport. It is VERY small. 4 gates Which means that whoever is in line with you at security are also the people on your flight. They are usually very laid back about children and babies, and although I fly a lot and have my security procedures down to a science, I do appreciate the slower pace in Abilene. They even had stickers for Braden for walking through the metal detector. NICE! the only airport I have ever seen do this. And they make kids walk through if they can walk. I can remember trying to coax Braden (almost 2) in the St Louis airport to walk through the the gateway while all the other commotion of the airport is going on around us. Plus some old guy yelling at Braden "Come on buddy!" as if that will make him go faster.


• Just as we were about to take off and after the stewardess was done all of her announcements she walks over to me and whispers " in the case we have an emergency landing and we need to evacuate the airplane, we will either use the door you came in up front the door across the by the galley." I couldn't understand why she was telling me that. I believe it was mentioned in the safety brief two minutes prior, but here she was telling me all this info again. I didn't/don't know why.... I didn't see her tell any of the other passengers with babies this info. Did she think I wasn't listening. Did she think because I had children I was more apt to panic if something should go wrong? Quite Odd.

• Do you know that it is a federal requirement to obey any order given by a flight attendant? Too much power if you ask me!

• I have a problem of not recognizing people if I see them out of context. Once I sat next to my neighbor for 12 weeks in bible study not realizing she was my neighbor. So it really shouldn't have shocked me that a guy that I saw at the ticket counter, at the gate, and then eventually I sat next too turns out to be a guy from church. It wasn't until the plane had taken off that he leans over to me and says "Julia... its me Jeff, we are in the same class at church." Right right.... duh! I can't believe I am so thick!

• I wore Tristan in a backpack carrier. I had never used it with him before, and I was not sure how he would react. While he rode around on my back all over DFW was pretty much the only time that he wasn't screaming!

• We rode the SKYLINK for about 40 minutes.... around and around. We had a bit of a layover and some time to fill.

• How come some flight attendants treat you as if you are an inconveince? As if somehow as their passendger we are getting in their way.

• When we landed in New Orleans Braden had to go potty.... BIG TIME potty. The line at the ladies room was about 10 gals long. So with our two carry on bags, T on my back and Braden doing his dance we went across the way to the mens room. I thought I could just run into a stall and have no one really notice us. But it was a busy day and all 2 stalls were full. So we waited, just standing there trying to look at anything BUT all these strange men standing up peeing!

But we are here! We made it. We are having a great time. I will write more later!