Thank you to everyone except Verizon*

We made it safely to Alaska and all your prayers and the help of the baby angels combined together to make things go absolutely smoothly. The snowstorm held off that night until GH was on his way back home from the airport. Previously full seats somehow opened up and I ended up in my OWN ENTIRE ROW with the baby and his carseat. Kind and good people jumped forward to help me with bags when my arms were full, and one older gentleman silently stood guard over a sleeping Dark Lord while I slipped off to go catch a disease from the airplane bathroom.

True to form, little Lord Voldemort was a trooper--patient, content, and interested in the proceedings. He is just such an accepting little fellow. Unless pants are involved. He is not accepting of pants. He must get the accepting nature from his dad, because I don't think it came from me as much. It took him a long time to fall asleep (nearly two hours) but then he was out for the duration and I breathed a sigh of relief, along with all the other passengers.

And then I got out my iPad and found out that there was free wireless on the plane. Best. Ever. The only tiny gnat in the ointment was the group of women traveling together. Three of them were in the row behind me, and my word they all loved each other so much that they did not stop talking the entire 4.5 hour trip in the dead of night. We took off at 9:45pm, so you do the math on how late it was, and how much crankier I got every hour. They weren't being loud enough to be truly disruptive, but it was annoying enough that I couldn't drift off to sleep once TDL was settled and a nap seemed like a good idea. They even had some sort of computer game that they were playing in the beginning of the flight with the sound on, and I did turn around and ask them to turn the sound off. They looked at me like I was crazy but did turn off the sound (and, unfortunately, turned on their voices). But really. You are on a super late-night flight with babies right next to you and sleeping people all around and you think they want to hear your computer games and your voices?

At one point one of them laughed loudly. I had been dozing off so I jumped about 3 feet in the air. TDL didn't wake up, but the nice grandpa across the aisle was very, very concerned that he could have. I think he wanted to punch those ladies in the boob for almost waking up "the handsome little fellow." Or maybe that was me with the boob-punching fantasies. For sure the one where I grabbed the middle lady by the hair and smashed her face down on the tray table was mine. Please remember, it was like 2 a.m. by this point. Also they kept using my seat back as some kind of hand rail for standing when it actually is not one of those at all.

But still. Considering all the many, many things that went blessedly right, I'll take a few yappy bridge-dwellers. When we landed, suddenly everyone wanted to turn around and compliment the baby, especially the older men who I'm sure were cringing in their seats when they saw him coming. "That's a fine boy you have there." "You were such a good boy, I never even heard you!"

Well played, baby. Well played.

Discovering the toys at Grandma & Grandpa's house

*Verizon is on my crap list because they don't have service in Alaska, so if you have tried to call my cell phone I am very sorry. I've gone off the grid--you know, if you don't count Facebook and email and everything.