Last plane ride for a while?

 We had some nice standby tickets to Ohio and it suddenly occurred to me that my window for traveling was quickly closing. Airlines start getting a little edgy the closer a woman is traveling to her due date. Plus, the whole "lap child" thing becomes less feasible as the bump grows and the lap shrinks. So for Penny's "midwinter recess," which had been reduced to a four-day weekend due to Superstorm Sandy, we headed home to Ohio for another play date-filled adventure. A brief delay at the airport was no problem - though the flight attendant who hurt his or her hand opening the plane door might have thought it more than a minor inconvenience.

Our first play date was with FCOR John. He was an excellent host, even allowing us to invite over a few additional family members: Uncle Jim (happy birthday), Grandma & Grandpa Saluke, Uncle Mike, cousin Mary & her son Danny (same age as Paul), Pop pop (belated happy birthday) & Jenny. Penny enjoyed playing a very cool game with frogs and lily pads with John, while Paul explored the many exciting vehicles in the house. Conveniently, the house had a figure eight layout, so there were lots of driving paths available. I'm pretty sure I saw the scene with Indiana Jones hanging off the side of the car while the driver tried to scrape him off on the surrounding terrain in a couple of movies - probably Lost Ark being the most memorable. Aunt Helen was nice enough to clean up so Aunt Rose and Uncle Jack could hardly tell we had a party at their house while they were gone.

Saturday we visited Evan (also Paul's age), who was spending the night at Uncle Bill and Aunt Marian's house. It sounded like his overnight was similarly restless as Mr. Paul's first night at Aunt Helen's. Ugh...it took a day or two to recover some of that sleep. Saturday afternoon we played with Pop pop and were later joined by Amanda for some fun Star Trek Settlers (of Catan). Who knew?! The game ended around midnight - Aunt Helen was very motivated because she was supposed to read at church in the morning, but I beat her by one turn - you know, to help her get to sleep on time.

Though I woke up good and early, we did not make it to church on Sunday. Paul had a slimy night and an unpleasant morning as we discovered he had a bit of a stomach bug. He was in good spirits, but I didn't feel like being surprised by a p.u.ee mess in the pew. I wasn't feeling great either, though more likely due to the lack of sleep than the bug. We were both feeling decent enough to head over to the grandparents for a lovely dinner and some additional game playing. After a hard-fought game of Uno (Penny helped to end that game), Grandma gave Penny some crucial pointers on score keeping. While the girls - Penny, Grandma, Jenny, Aunt Helen and Amanda - played cards and chatted in the dining room, the guys - Pop Pop, Grandpa and Paul - played with trucks in the living room. I kind of floated between the two to document all the fun. Aunt Rose popped by just before bedtime since we hadn't really gotten to see her when we held the party at her house a couple days prior. We headed back to Aunt Helen's for the night and were then joined by Aunt Ann and Uncle Don, on their way back from Chicago for a fun weekend. Paul was kind enough to stay up just a bit later so they could get to spend a little time seeing him in action before he zonked out.

On Monday, Paul still seemed to be in good spirits, so we stuck with our plan to visit the Newport Aquarium with Pop Pop. It was a stroller prohibited day, so we had an entertaining time lifting the two kiddos to see various cool critters. There were lots of funny moments with noses pressed to glass or pointers at the floor or ceiling as there were quite a few tanks in surprising places. Our biggest excitement for the day was feeding the Lorikeets. These colorful cuties drink nectar from the little cups they're offered. Or, as we discovered, they are happy to hop off with the cups if you don't maintain eye contact 100% of the time. Penny was pretty upset that they spilled nectar on her shirt. I was glad we didn't get any other items on our shirt because these guys were pretty well-fed and the docents had a protective hut over their heads for some odd reason.

We headed back to the airport on Tuesday, ready for what could be a messy flight home. Paul hadn't recovered just yet, so I had plenty of wipes and spare outfits on hand. We boarded just fine, but after we stopped to be de-iced, we were notified that our destination airport was closed due to high winds. It reopened just 15 minutes later, but we'd lost our spot in the take-off line, so we then had to wait another hour to take off. Seatbelts off, snacks out and a few cups of apple juice later, we'd all had potty breaks and were ready to head home to New York. We were now well past dinner time and working on our third or so bag of pretzels each. The cart had just passed, when my arm began to feel warm and wet and a pretty appalling smell was starting to pervade the cabin. Paul's diaper/pants were literally bubbling over, so I grabbed every napkin I could and asked the stewardess for a trash bag of some kind. Shockingly, Paul was not willing to sit still until she returned, so I chugged Penny's remaining apple juice, stuffed the nasty pile of napkins inside and rummaged for the diaper bag while Paul writhed like a Moray Eel escaping from its hole. I managed to keep him from escaping and kept my balance all the way back to the bathroom. Paul's old outfit went in a Ziplock, he got a thorough wipey bath followed by a new set of pjs, and I triaged my sweater and pants. Sadly, all of our backup outfits were a bit lighter than our original outfits, so I dreaded the upcoming stroll across the tarmac to re-enter the terminal. I'd foolishly stowed our coats in the gate side check-in bag. We survived, reunited with our various bags and were pleased to be greeted at baggage claim by Daddy - we were so late that he'd actually made it to the airport significantly earlier than we had. There were joyous hugs and kisses all around. I think it has been a while since I've been so happy to return home. Now I'm just hoping little Paul will get over this digestive bug so I can start feeding him real food again, poor thing.