I had the perfect outfit planned for nursing moms.
I had the perfect carry-on bags.
I had great hacks, like bringing your own empty bottle on for the in-flight drink — cause ain’t no way mama’s gonna be able to drink safely from a cup with an in-lap baby.
In fact, I was so absorbed in how to tell you all to fly that I lost track of how much time I was taking to get ready. Before I knew it, the hours I had to pack dwindled to a singular one.
“No worries,” I thought. “I don’t have any decisions to make. I just need to put everything in their bags.”
My daughter though, had her own set of plans. Which included at least 30 minutes of what I call nurse-sleeping (sleeping very attached to the boob.) My sister, Sarah, began packing for me until I could transfer the sleeping baby to her arms and take over myself. Before I know it, Sarah looks up and says, “We were supposed to leave 10 minutes ago.” 10 minutes after that, I’m finally ready. As I put my daughter in her car seat, I realize there is yellow-green on her back where there should not be any yellow-green. I have always been a Pampers girl. Through all my babies, foster, adopted, bio or babysat — Pampers have been my go-to. Except this time, Pampers wasn’t cutting it.
“No time to change her,” Sarah says. I rush back into the house once more to find my favorite red and pink strawberry muslin that is to die for, and then we’re off. I look up at the clock in the car console as she begins backing out of her driveway. Oh crap, I sigh. We have 45 minutes until my flight departs.
The short trip to the airport is made shorter by my sister’s speeding, and once we get to parking, we don’t have things perfectly planned. My daughter and one of my nephews is now asleep in the car. We desperately need another adult. “Quick,” Sarah says. “Grab your big bag, and whatever else you can take quickly, and get to ticketing so you can check your bag. I’ll park and get the kids and bring baby to you.”
And so I grab all my hands can, and rush to Delta’s tiny ticket counter at Augusta Regional Airport to check in at 4:29 for my 4:59 flight. (I know. I’m a rockstar at flying with kids, right?!?)
The courteous agent with dark skin and glowing white teeth greets me with a friendly smile. “I need to check in quickly,” I gush, mostly out of breath.
“Please do not tell me you are here for the 4:59 flight?” she questions.
“Yep — that’s the one!” I say.
“We have a minute, no seconds, to get your bag on the flight!” And with that she starts attacking her keyboard with lightning-fast fingers, as I quickly pass her my driver’s license then lift my 50-lb case onto the scale. She slaps stickers on my bag and urges me, “Get this bag to that agent right there, now!” I rush it off, then rush back to get my boarding pass. Sarah and the sleepy kids come in, and where the agent tells me it is now too late to check my car seat. “We just barely had enough time to get your bag on!” she puffs, mostly from being out of breath I think than from frustration. Everyone in the South always seems nice, so it’s hard to tell. I quickly kiss my sister and nephew good-bye, and take my poopy baby and boarding passes and a ridiculous amount of stuff off to security.
I never know whether to hold onto my boarding pass, or to put it in my bag through security, so I took a risk and shoved them into my Ergo which I loaded with all my other baby gear onto the conveyor belt: baby car seat, stroller, backpack, tote bag, ergo, shoes, electronics, liquids, etc. “Oh yes,” I say when asked, “I did leave the baby’s medicine in a cooler in the very bottom of my bag.” The TSA guards have a bit of compassion and don’t make me rummage through to get it. A jaunt through the “let’s-all-pretend-I’m-naked-device” and I scoop up my blowout baby back into my Ergo, toss my husband’s backpack on my back, put my tote in the stroller, with the upside-down car seat draped over the top, and slip on my shoes as I trek to the gate.
I arrive to the gate as boarding is well underway. I try to steer to the right of the line to get to the ticket counter to gate check my items, but sadly the seats have barricaded me out. Straight through the line I must go.