Arrived Alive

Obviously if I am posting this, we arrived to Florida alive and sound. Ava did much better than I anticipated. We had empty seats next to us on both legs of our trip down, luckily. Once in the air on the first leg, Ava wriggled around in her seat but was happy to stay there. I'd envisioned her running up and down the aisle of a crowded airplane. She played with the barf bag, looked at a couple of books, lost interest in the travel-sized Aquadoodle after 5 seconds, plastered stickers all over her own seat and window next to her. She tried to pull off her socks with her shoes on and after I obliged and helped her, she wore socks on her hands like mittens for a while, easily entertaining herself with that. At the Atlanta airport, we rode the train to a different concourse which was her first train ride. I let her run around to burn off some energy but she kept darting in front of pedestrians on the concourse that I finally strapped her into her stroller to save my sanity. I was working up a sweat chasing after her. On the second leg, Ava fell asleep in my lap before takeoff (I think the engine drone conked her out and she was tired after getting up at 5:30am), slept through takeoff, the entire flight, and the landing. I was very surprised that she actually slept on the plane.

All in all, a good experience. I saw a mom traveling alone with an older toddler in a stroller and a baby in a sling. Then I decided I needn't fear flying alone with a toddler ever again. If she could do that, then I definitely can, too.

PS: Man, I just love this background and the new designs that Blogger comes up with!