Saturday, July 6, 2013
That flight was possibly the worst fucking idea ever. What the hell was I thinking and agreeing to take the pampered Prince on an overnight flight, with a layover? I should have known when the foolishness started on the way to my parents' house. Below is on the southern state. "I just need to give him some of his sandwich!"
It's our own fault.
The nap nazi gets him in his pjs and in his crib for his naps. Sure sometimes the time is a little off but in general it works great and he has responded well to it.
It also works well for bed time.
He seemed to be having a good time at my parents' house, running around, exploring everything he can get his hands on, hanging out.
We got to the counter and the woman from Icelandair was awesome. She made sure that no one would sit next to us and we could use his car seat. This sounds like the best deal ever - own seat and it's free. He's such a good baby too, he will just chill out and fall asleep. Of course, everyone is loving him as he's waiting to get on the plane. He's flirting with everyone, he's the mayor and he's gonna have it good on this flight.
We grabbed some shitty, overpriced airport food and he's lining up his McDonald's fries, climbing on the table (another hint) and having a good time and Jess looks over and says, "We don't have that much extra stuff with us, except all this..." meaning the baby, the car seat, her giant carry on, his travel crib. I gave her a look and said, "Yeah, not at all, it would have been us and two backpacks."
We take off without a hitch and all seems right. I change my watch over to Edinburgh time so that I can start thinking in that mode. It's actually like 1:50 am, Edinburgh time and we should all be asleep. It's 9 our time and the baby should be passing out soon. He's fussing a little but nothing major, Jess turns on some Bob the Builder and he's happy. What's not to be happy about? Cartoons and no pants.
9 becomes 10 which quickly turns into 11. The girl in front of the baby decides to lean her seat back (to which she is entitled) and he doesn't like this. He starts trying to reach it with his feet. Quite successfully I might add. We keep stopping him and he's getting more cranky. We get him out of the seat so he could put his pants back on and when we put him back, he's not having any of it. He's definitely not having her seat near him. He kicks at it every chance he gets.
Jess and I quietly and calmly reach consensus on the next steps we will take in order to get him to sleep. This starts off with me attempting to hold him and calm him down. This usually works. It of course, doesn't. After about an hour of this shit, the screaming wasn't too bad just a lot of, "I'm really tired," crying and "You two idiots have me off my schedule and on a plane when I should be sleeping," Jess comes up with what has to be the worst fucking idea of, "Let's let him sleep on the floor."
Really?
I can assure you that this did not work either. The screaming amplified and intensified for the next two hours. I felt really bad for him. He was sooo overtired he just couldn't relax and there was no comforting him. I felt bad for all the people on the flight too. He definitely kept everyone up. I have been on the receiving end of that scenario numerous times. And now, both Jess and I are delirious. I can function without sleep better than she can. Luckily, we both have learned how to speak nicely to one another and be supportive during stressful times like these.
I can't even believe that our kid was that fucking kid.
I remember in the airport, them making a lot of announcements about people having their documents checked, I think I am reporting my son to have his checked because I would like to know who this kid is.
Did I mention that he hates me at this point. This might have been the worst fucking idea: give him back to me to hold. This is when the screaming, blood curdling, break your ear drum screaming occurs. He screamed more on this flight than he has in his entire 19 months of life. We're desperate - like trying to get over the border desperate. He must have cried for a good two hours.
Eventually, at some point, I think around 4 am Icelandic time he fell asleep and so did we. We got about 45 min or so before they started the fucking landing routine which turned in to a comedy routine.
Jess and her wonder bag of toys he has never seen tried to get him to relax and be ok for the rest of the flight by giving him two animal toys, a wolf and a cheetah. He was good for the most part - lining them up on the arm, banging them on the arm, handing them back and forth to me, taking them from me, etc. The he started to zone out and da-da was left with the wolf and the cheetah.
This is where the delirium began to kick in. The wolf started banging the cheetah, Jess tell me to stop but she is secretly laughing. I know this because she says, "They're going to make a wolfa." To which I say, It's not a wolfa, it's a weetah!" We're laughing, finally and having a slightly good time. She says, "This was the worst flight ever." To which I reply, "There are probably a lot of people on this plane saying that right now."
I'd like to point out that none of this would have been possible if that chick had moved her seat up half an inch or just switched to the middle seat.
The delirium continued as we prepared to get off the plane. Jess swears that she heard someone one say, "Kill the Jews, maybe they were quoting a movie or something." And in her awesome line of reasoning, she finally connected two topics and said, "That flight with the smelly Hasidic guy was really bad too." To which I laughed and countered with, "Yeah, but not as smelly as that fucking French guy who almost made you throw up."
We waited to be the last ones off the plane - and, we're in Iceland!
We waited around for a bit for our flight, of course, he's flirting with everyone and we're playing cars on the floor of the terminal. We're also the last ones to get on the plane, and we're accompanied by Glen Torran FC, who were just in Reykjavik for the first leg of their home and home Europa League qualifier - I know this because I am sitting next to one of the coaching staff and he lived in Mineola for 15 years. You can't get away from Long Islanders, anywhere!
I'll spare you the details of the drive, just know that it's scary, especially when she says, "This doesn't even feel familiar anymore. It used t always feel familiar. Does that scare you?" I say no, but her driving is scary in general, then you add the wrong side of the road and car to the equation and I am scared as hell.
Aside from a few minor glitches, the ride went well and we were able to eventually navigate our way past the kirk, up the hill, make a left at the white house and then find the second white house on the left.
Mid Kinleith Farm cottage is quite cozy and the view is fucking ridiculous!
Tesco was torturous - we missed the road once or twice and the whole experience was just miserable considering how tired we were and Jess knew where nothing was. I did however get a fine assortment of Scottish beers which will be enjoyed over this view for the next five evenings, horses and all!
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