After staying up until after midnight packing, we had to be up at 3:00 a.m. for our 6:00 a.m. flight. It was not pretty. In my opinion, 3:00 a.m. never is. Still, we learned our lesson from the dreaded missed-flight-incident of May 2011 and gave ourselves plenty of time.
The flight to Baltimore was super short, and we arrived without incident. We had a 3.5-hour layover, so we settled in for the long haul. After walking the (small) terminal a bit and spending some time playing with Nora on the floor, we were tired and it was time to relax. You know, as much as one can relax in an airport.
Michael took Nora for a stroll to lull her to sleep, and I stretched out across some chairs to rest my eyes. Apparently I kinda-sorta dozed off, and by the time Michael came back with a sleeping Nora, we both looked like this:
I’ll tell you: It wasn’t a bad way to spend a good chunk of a layover. (NOTE: In the pic above, Nora is still in her pajamas. We changed her into a cute little sleeveless and legless romper—appropriate for 90+ degrees in Mexico!—before we got back on a plane. This detail is important later.)
Anyway, the three hours passed like no big deal, and soon it was time to board our flight to Cancun. Still drowsy from the early-morning wake-up call, Nora promptly fell asleep shortly after take off, and proceeded to sleep the majority of the three-hour flight.
Uneventful, I say. It was nice.
But then things changed.
In short, things got… gross. (That’s your warning right there. You can’t say I didn’t tell you.)
About 10 minutes before we landed, Nora started making her tell-tale “poop face.” (Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time with babies and small children know exactly what I’m talking about.) Michael and I exchanged a few little laughs and I commented how it was perfect timing, because we were going to be off the plane shortly and could change her diaper at the airport. We have yet to change a diaper in an airplane bathroom, which is nice, because I still cannot picture how that would work logistically.
Nora was sitting on Michael’s lap at the time, and he confirmed that he could feel movement in the diaper. Alrighty then.
A few minutes later, for reasons I am unsure of, Michael suspected that perhaps Nora’s diaper wasn’t doing its job. Its job being containing the poo, of course. So, he casually lifted her up off of his lap to take a peek AND OH MY GOD ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE.
Michael’s lap was COVERED in shit. COVERED. We’re not talking about a little leakage here. We are talking a 100% FAILURE on the part of the diaper.
Panic ensued. Because we were trapped. We had a guy sitting in the aisle seat next to us. The seat belt light was on and we were unable to get out of our seats due to the fact that we were, well, landing.
As Michael held Nora about six inches off of his lap, unsure what to do next, I did the only thing I could think of–I grabbed the case of baby wipes, thinking maybe I could “grab” the poo off of Michael’s shorts. I tried that, and well… I’ll just say that there was a whole lot of smearing going on. “Grabbing” was not working for this particular variety of poo.
It was hopeless.
About 20 poopy baby wipes later (which I stuffed into the ever-handy barf bag located in the seat pocket), Michael was really no cleaner than he had been to start. But at least he didn’t have semi-solid waste sitting on his shorts anymore. Just the aforementioned smears, which of course, smelled like… well… shit.
Meanwhile, we had landed, and were making our way to the gate. The guy next to us, God bless him, was in good spirits, despite his senses being assaulted. He kindly empathized, telling us that his daughter (who is now 17) had once crapped down the back of his neck as he carried her on his shoulders. That made us feel a little bit better, but we still felt sorry for the dude. He cracked a joke to Michael, saying “I hope you have another pair of shorts!”
Um, yeah. That’s the thing. We did not have another pair of shorts. Not on us, anyway. Contrary to every other time we have traveled, we checked all of our baggage, except for a backpack. Because space in the backpack was limited, we had included an extra outfit for Nora, but had not packed extra clothes for ourselves. We broke our own rule, and it had come back to bite us in the ass.
You see, Michael was not going to be able to change his shorts until after we picked up our bags at baggage claim. If you have ever traveled internationally, you know that baggage claim is on the OTHER SIDE of immigration. This adventure was not going to be over anytime soon.
After I had “cleaned” the poop off of Michael’s lap, there was still Nora to attend to. She still had poo oozing out the legs of her diaper, and needed a wardrobe change herself. To avoid exposing the people around us to further foul sights and smells, we sat tight as every.single.soul deplaned before us, despite the fact that we were seated pretty close to the front of the plane. Thankfully, Nora was cooperative as we held her perfectly still–Michael with her upper body, me with her legs.
In the meantime, I told Michael, “I’m sacrificing my Hooter Hider!” (a.k.a. nursing cover) and laid it across his lap so he’d have a clean surface on which to lay Nora. Once everyone was officially off the plane, we stripped Nora of her clothes and disgusting diaper, got the new one on her, and bolted as fast as we could.
In other words, we were the classy people entering the Cancun airport with our baby in nothing but a diaper.
Once in the airport, I threw Nora’s extra outfit on her while Michael secured the Hooter Hider (I’m not being cute; that’s what it’s called!) to the front of him like an apron. The PINK, very girly Hooter Hider. We had to mask the poop somehow! So, Michael walked through the Cancun airport and through a looooong immigration line, looking like this:
At least we were laughing about it. Though, it should be noted that although the Hooter Hider did a good job at masking the sight of the poop, it could not mask the smell. Holy Lord.
We wound our way through the immigration line, every once in a while catching a fresh whiff of poo. It wasn’t pretty, people.
In any case, I apologize to anyone and everyone who may have been in the Cancun airport immigration area around 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 29, 2011. No, someone had not stepped in dog shit. There was not a smelly bathroom nearby.
It was my husband. Because of my daughter.
Well played, travel gods. Well played.
(And lesson learned, by the way. You better believe we will have an extra pair of shorts in our backpack on the way home!)
We put our place on the market on February 1st.
It’s June 27th. We are still searching for a buyer for our home.
I honestly NEVER thought that it would be this hard. When our realtor filled out the contract agreement and put 8/1/11 as the expiration date for our listing, we laughed. We thought there was no way we would come even close to hitting that expiration date. We thought we’d sell in a couple of months, tops.
Well, here we are, just a little more than 30 days away from that expiration, and we haven’t had a single showing in five weeks. We’ve had a few open houses and some traffic through, but we’ve had a lack of serious buyers. This is frustrating in any selling situation, but it’s brutal for us, since you know, we’re closing on our new house in August.
We really, really, really do not want to become landlords by renting this place out. Plus, at this point, things are so completely the opposite of how we thought they were going to go that we are nervous that we’d even be able to find a suitable tenant!
So, we sit here, shaking in our boots every single day. Just wishing, hoping, praying, WILLING a buyer to come along. It would be such a huge relief to find one. An enormous weight off our shoulders if we could come across that needle in the haystack.
I keep thinking that surely at some point, things will HAVE to fall into place, right? The power of positive thinking. Have faith. Things work out the way they should. Isn’t that what everyone always says?
To try to help things along, we’ve been doing everything in our power to encourage a sale. We’ve lowered the price (twice). And now, this past weekend, we moved a bunch of stuff out of the house. We took pictures off the walls. We cleared things out of closets and rooms to make them feel less cramped–especially since we are literally busting at the seams in this place. (Hey, that’s why we’re moving!)
After we did all that, we went around and took new pictures. We were never happy with the ones that our realtor took on that cold winter’s day back in February, with her little point-and-shoot camera. So, we went around and “staged” each room the best we could and took nice shots with our DSLR. They’ve been updated in the system, and I am crossing my fingers and praying that they are enough to convince someone to schedule an appointment to see this place. And that the visit is enough to make them want to buy it.
Now we continue to wait. As we have waited for nearly five months now.
Every day, hoping we will get that call. It only takes one.
It only takes one.
Last Monday, we took Nora in for her nine-month well-baby doctor’s visit. I always look forward to these appointments (especially now that they’re three months apart, which seems like forever!) because it gives me the opportunity to ask 10 million questions. It also reassures us that we’re not total screw-ups as parents, so that’s nice.
Oh, but before I say more–Nora is now 16 lbs., 4 oz. and 26.75 inches long. That’s approximately the 7th percentile for weight, and 18th percentile for height. Still technically a peanut, although she certainly seems huge to us!
Anyway, at the appointment, we spent a lot of time talking about eating habits and what the next three months will look like. Nora’s a great eater. She gobbles everything up like a champ, and does not seem to be a picky eater–at least not at this stage of her life. She pretty much eats whatever we give her.
Lately, though, she’s been grabbing the spoon when we try to shovel in her purees. It’s like she’d rather take the puree off the spoon and feed it to herself. You can imagine how well THAT goes (HUGE MESS). Our pediatrician said that this is a sign that she’s done with purees and ready to strictly feed herself now.
Whoa.
We had been giving her teeny pieces of some real foods–banana, watermelon, peas, green beans, cheese shreds, breads, and of course, puffs. She’d been doing well, but I wasn’t expecting to be completely done with purees just yet. And, well, to be fair, we’re not. I still have a bunch of frozen puree cubes left in the freezer, so we’re at least going to continue until those are gone. Plus, sometimes it’s still EASIER to feed her purees because we’ve become quite efficient at it over the last three months. Letting her feed herself is a whole different ballgame!
But now that Nora has been “cleared” to eat anything, it’s been fun to do a little experimenting the last week or so. We’ve started giving her pieces of whatever we’re having. I still cut everything up into miniscule pieces because I’m paranoid like that (the girl still doesn’t have any teeth!), but she’s handled it all well. She didn’t seem to be TOO big a fan of our slow-cooked mexican chicken dish (too spicy?) but she DEVOURED dinner tonight.
Peas, green beans, leftover pasta with meat sauce, chicken french, a little sausage… girlfriend was eating it up faster than I could lay it down. This was her first meal during which we didn’t give her ANY purees.
My baby is growing up so fast!
Now, we are officially entering the wonderful world of finger foods. We’ll continue to give her things that we’re eating, but I wouldn’t mind having some other things in the rotation for her. Anyone out there have any advice/suggestions for good (nutritious!) things for her to eat?
Nora has developed a new skill.
I’m guessing not long. Gone are the days when we could put her in one spot and count on her to–more or less–stay there.
We better get to that baby proofing.
On the day we were married, we had dreams of our future together and the family we would build. Just three years later, it feels like an eternity has passed, yet it also feels like only the blink of an eye. I’m not sure how that’s possible, but it is what it is.
Today, we have the beginnings of the family we had hoped for. We have a little girl who is so much more amazing than we ever could have known. There is so much love within these (less than) 1,000 square feet that we need to move to a bigger house. (OK, so the move might have more to do with outrageous amounts of stuff that babies/kids need, but… love sounds more romantic, so let’s go with that.)
Life is good. Cheers to three years, and to many more…
There’s nothing I won’t do
I promise you – all my life I will live for you
We will make it through
Forever – we will be
Together – you and me
Oh and when I hold you – nothing can compare
With all of my heart – you know I’ll always be –
right there
I believe in us – nothing else could ever mean so much
You’re the one I trust
Our time has come – we’re not two people
Now we are one
Yeah you’re second to none
Forever – we will be
Together – a family
The more I get to know you – nothing can compare
With all of my heart – you know I’ll always be –
right there
“I’ll Always Be Right There” – Bryan Adams
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
