Leavin' on a Jet Plane

Emily and I are preparing to leave for Pennsylvania this weekend as part of John's COT (consecutive overseas tour) entitlement. Basically, this means that if a servicemember serves back-to-back overseas tours, the government will fly him/her and the family back to the home of record for one trip. Sadly, because of John's Australian TDY, he's not going to be able to go with us, which largely defeats the purpose. However, the grandparents on both sides made it clear that my butt had better be on a plane with their grandbaby come hell or high water.

While part of me is thinking "kill me now", I've traveled alone with Emily before and she's quite a good traveler. As a matter of fact, she had flown across 32 time zones by the time she was 12 months old, which is fairly impressive by any standard. Granted, she wasn't walking during most of that time, which presents a whole new challenge now, but the upside of having a baby who doesn't sleep worth beans is that significant time zone changes aren't really that big of a deal.

The first time Emily flew was after four days in a German hospital when we finally got some answers (and confirmation of Mommy Radar) regarding what was causing her such pain. Getting her the right medication through the military treatment facilities in Germany, however, was going to take a month or so, and I'd had it. I'd watched my baby hurt for five months and I wasn't about to stand by a day longer than necessary. So we got on a Space-A flight to BWI and my awesome father drove 8 hours round trip to get us, bearing the medicine we needed.

Funny thing about that flight is that it was packed with guys returning from downrange (Iraq and Afghanistan), so it was full of men who looked like Daddy but weren't quite Daddy. Emily spent quite a lot of time balancing precariously on my legs, looking around with some confusion and bemusement. While I expected these tired guys to be less than thrilled to have a baby on board, I found that many of them were fathers who had been separated from their kids for way too long and were sweet with both of us and Emily flirted madly with them.

Then there was the PCS from Germany to Hawaii when she was 7 months old. She managed to cut her first tooth on the flight from Frankfurt to DC and her second tooth from DC to San Francisco. Thankfully, breastfeeding saved the day. God sure knew what He was doing when He designed that one.

A trip to Colorado last fall was more interesting since she had begun walking. She must've lapped the terminal 3 times by the time we boarded, which wore her out a bit. She also managed to flirt with countless people and get lots of compliments in the meantime, even from buttoned-up businessmen who weren't accustomed to interacting with little ones in an airport. Then again, it's hard to resist a fuzzy-headed baby who puts her hands on your leg and turns her face up into yours with a bright smile to get your attention.

So, thanks to Uncle Sam, we get a visit with family... and thanks to Uncle Sam, John won't be with us. But we're looking forward to visits with almost my entire family (my brother-in-law will be missing) as well as a week in Chicago on the way back with almost John's entire family (minus the Germany contingent, whom we miss terribly). There are some members of the family who haven't met Emily yet, so we're really excited about this!

And I'm wondering about bringing along some alcohol. Whether for me or for Squeaker is to be determined.