Emery is three months old, and he has already been so many places, and on so many adventures! From hikes to shopping to church and restaurants and out with friends, Emery is very familiar with travel. He has even been on out of state car trips with Beka when she travels for work! He is such a good boy and is always so patient and well behaved on our many travels. So when Team Oakley was going to take him on his first airplane ride, we were hoping his laid back temperament was going to be the same, but we were still skeptical. A 6 hour plane ride with a layover and a 3 month old is enough to made even the most awesome parents sweat. So Team Oakley was nervous to say the least. But hey, we are all about adventures!
We got up VERY early on Dec 26th after an awesome Christmas day to leave for San Diego. Beka and Michael dressed, then while Michael jam packed our mini SUV full of two weeks of luggage and baby essentials for two adults and an Emery, Beka went to wake Emery up and get him in his car seat. In her mind the process looked like her tip-toeing into his room and gently cuddling him out of his crib. Then she would gingerly place him in the car seat with the patience and gentleness that rivals Mother Teresa, all without him even knowing what was going on and continue him sleeping like the perfect angel that his is with uninterrupted dreams of sheep and cozy clouds.
But in reality, she opened the door and he woke up within two seconds oh her trying to sneak into his room (thanks creaking palstic hardwood floors. You make Beka’s ninja/mom skills non-existant). He was not just a little awake where she could lull him back to sleep, he was side eyed, smiley, ready for the day awake. And he was wet. So do you change a wet baby and get him riled up, or do you put him in the car seat with a wet diaper, hoping he would fall back asleep?….Well Beka did not know, but she tried putting him in the car seat, banking on the fact that once he was in the car he would fall asleep and the changing would not wake him up more. Fail.
Mr. Emery was awake all the way to the airport, and now with a wet diaper. It would seem like he was going to fall and stay asleep, but then his eyes would shoot open in anticipation of our current adventure. He was good, and not fussy, but it was a lesson learned. Always change a wet baby. Always.
When we got to the airport, the line for checking in the luggage was so long! Really!?! At 4:30am !?! So Beka and Michael opted to use the curb side luggage check to save some time. The downfall for that plan, however, is that it was curbside. That means outside, which is FREEZING! And Emery still has a dirty diaper. But despite the stress of the cold and the wet, Emery and Mom and Dad all kept our cool and pushed through that freezing line. Once the luggage was checked, we got inside, thawed, and got emery a fresh diaper. We thought that now that he was clean he would fall right to sleep in his stroller. Wrong again. He was up and ready to go! All through the ticket line he was smiling at people and making everyone laugh at how happy this baby was!
We got Emery his little ticket and we were on our way through security.
The man who checks the tickets made Michael take his hat off to prove to him it was the right person. On Michael’s driver’s license he is clean-shaven (and in a tuxedo…you should ask him why sometime). And this is how Michael Oakley looked the day we left Nashville:
So we understood the TSA’s hesitation to let him pass. Once he proved his identity and we went through, we had a good laugh at his face (Michael’s face is always a good laughing place J)
So now we had to go through the metal detectors. When Beka and Michael travel by themselves, they are experienced enough to go in the expert travel line. Beka travels for work, and Michael has toured enough for them to know how go through that giant metal detector with efficiency that rivals George Clooney in Up in the Air. Don’t mess with us, we are professionals.
But guess who were the two fumbling fools with a baby, 30 oz of breast milk, and a big metal stroller holding up the security line at 5 am in the Nashville airport…these guys.
Oh man! It would be easier to fit an Elephant in a safeway than to travel with an infant. Emery was not the issue. He was chillin. He was super calm and happy the whole time. But the stroller would not fold up and they needed us to take all the bottles out to check for explosives and his pacifier clip has metal on it….and 20 more issues that made it take FOREVER before we made it pass the security check of doom and get back in a unit and travel to our gate. But we made it, no tears (from Emery or us) and we were on our way.
First stop once we were at our gate was….Starbucks. This morning it felt as necessary to travel as a passport. Once we were fueled up, we had about 20 mins before we boarded the plane. And finally we could breathe and relax.
We got to board early with family priority boarding (thank you southwest!) and we thought it would be smart to go ALL the way to the back of the plane so we could get settled in. We were in no hurry. So we literally sat in the second to last row of the plane, and got comfy. It was a full flight so we strategically sat Beka near the window, and Mike in the middle so Beka could breastfeed Emery on take off and landing (so his ears would not hurt, it worked like a charm!) with as much privacy as she could have. Thankfully the man sitting on the isle had kids, and he was very understanding and playful with Emery. He made faces and loved when Emery would smile at him.
Note to all the traveling parents out there: bring your boppy on board! It saved our arms for the 4 hours flight to have emery be able to lay on that and not have to support his weight the whole time. Also, it made feeling him in that tiny space easier too.
Emery was so good during the flight. He didn’t cry once! And he flirted with all the stewardess’, which helped the mood.
We landed in Vegas (which was weird for us, because we used to live there, but only had time to switch gates and look at the window), got something to eat, gave Emery a bottle, and we were on our way again to San Diego. We made our way to the back of the plane again. Right as we sat down we realized that Emery had a dirty diaper. A VERY dirty diaper. So we went into business mode and laid him on the middle seat between us and changed him. I am not sure if it was to be polite, or the smell, but no one ended up sitting in our isle after that. Regardless of why, score for us! We got a free middle seat, and it made the 1 ½ hour flight much easier that way. On this flight we needed to change his diaper again, and we thought we were so smart sitting all the way in the back because we were so close to the rest room. So we went to change him and were politely informed that the changing table was in the front rest room. Fail. Again.
After the change Emery was starting to get sleepy. We were worried he would fuss, so Michael busted out his Dad trick to put him to sleep (Beka has a mom trick too. She gives Emery his binky, then puts his face up to hers and kisses him for about 5 mins, and then, BAM, baby asleep). Michael’s trick is to cover Emery’s eyes with his hand (which ends up covering almost his whole face). It looks bad to someone who doesn’t understand what he is doing. It looks like Michael is smothering Emery. Emery is fine and can breathe fine, but for some reason the comfort of Michael’s skin and the darkness that his hand causes does the trick. And this time, it did the tricks in seconds. Is Michael magic….well maybe J.
Right after emery was out we were making our final descent into America’s finest city. It is always so fun for us to see the place we both grew up in and locate places from the air that we went on our first dates. Our hometown. We were so happy to be back.
Once we touched down, Emery was awake again! He only needed a short power nap, then he was ready to go! We slowly got off the plane and met Beka’s sister who was picking them up. She wasted no time in grabbing and kissing and snuggling Emery! Before the bug was born, we had to ask people to pick us up. They were all happy to, but not they are asking US if they can pick us up. They all wanted to get to love the little one first before they had to share with everyone else in Beka’s massive family. Her older sister, Rochelle, asked first, and she reveled in the privalidge! The last night she saw him he was only one week old!
We got our luggage, and we were on our way. Once we got out of the airport, we realized the climate change, and needed to strip Emery out of his winter Nashville clothes so he did not cook in sunny San Diego. It was warm, beautiful, and we were so excited to start our vacation adventure!
We survived our first flights with Emery, and he was more behaved than Beka and Michael were! We are so proud of him, and glad we have that experience under our traveling belts. Whew!
Thanks for sharing our airplane adventure!
Love,
Team Oakley
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