1 Mother 2 Another

We got our big travel day for Thanksgiving
out of the way, and I’ve been simply too exhausted to post.
Partly because the travel was tiring, but mostly because of how the
day started.


We arranged to wake up a good two hours before our car picked us up
for the airport; I assumed that would be enough time to pack our
last-minute things, get the kids ready, and so on. And it would
have been except that:


Ninety minutes before the car arrived, our upstairs tenant of our
two-family house knocked to tell us there was no hot water. Brian
staggered to the basement to re-light the pilot, only to be greeted
by four inches and rising of water in a flooded basement. Yes, the
hot water heater broke.

Since leaving our tenants without hot
water for two weeks simply wasn’t an option, I had to get
moving and get it fixed. In eighty-eight minutes. And oh, was that
Cora waking up and hungry?


Let’s not elaborate on the rest of that morning; suffice it
to say that it involved weeping and gnashing of teeth. And, of
course, a wet-dry vac, a grumpy plumber who couldn’t come for
several hours, and a saint of a mother who agreed to leave work and
wait for said grumpy plumber as we winged our way southward.
Somehow, miraculously, we managed to get everything packed and
loaded in time and arrived at the airport with plenty of time to
spare.


Turns out we had even more time than we’d figured, since our
flight ended up delayed over an hour. Maddie, fortunately, is a
flight-delay champ and took it in stride; she loves watching
airplanes and eating airport food. Cora, unfortunately, was a new
traveler and not so interested in taking things in stride.
I’d kept her hungry so she’d nurse on take-off, and
apparently that was about fifteen minutes too late for her
schedule: she started crying as soon as we got on the plane and was
wailing before ten rows had been filled. We got the evil eye from
our surrounding rows until I gave in and nursed her at the gate. I
kept trying to nurse just enough to take the edge off but not until
she was full, but Cora definitely did not appreciate the “Are
you finished NOW?” game we were playing and grumbled
–loudly – the whole time.


Fortunately, that was the worst of our day and the rest passed
fairly uneventfully. Maddie, too excited to nap on the plane, held
up well with all the sights and sounds, but the highlight for her
was going into her hotel bedroom and seeing her very own adult bed.
I told her she could sleep in it if she wanted, and she embraced
the idea enthusiastically, so my baby girl is now happily sleeping
in grown-up sized beds. And I dragged her air bed here for nothing.


Anyway, we’re now determinedly in family vacation mode, so
I’ll be in and out over the next week or so. Stay tuned for
adventures in Grandparent Land, as Maddie and Cora become quickly
used to a new and adoring audience . . .