Travel thoughts.
Benito and I are leaving for Pittsburgh on Thursday night, in order to attend the bat mitzvah of my cousin's eldest daughter, and also celebrate the 50th anniversary of my aunt and uncle as well as my parents. They got married in the same year. This is the aunt who is my mother's best friend - my mom's parents divorced at the same time as her best friend's mom died from breast cancer, and they went to the same shul, as well as the same school. They set my mom and her dad up, and thus became sisters. These cousins are our emotionally-closest relatives; we visited the cousins from my father's side a number of times growing up but never were as tightly woven into each other's lives. I haven't seen my cousins in a lot of years. All of my siblings will be there, as well as G'ma Shirley, Uncle David (Aunt Judy's brother), and a few other relatives. Rick is unable to make it b/c he has less than no vacation days left; he used up all his vacation going to Spain, so any future days not at work will simply be unpaid. He therefore opted not to come. Also, it would have been completely impossible for me to buy tickets for 3 people without *first* getting money from other people. As it is, I hope to ask for some monetary help from the fam I will see. I don't know if it'll work, but I'm going to ask.
I booked flights that are red-eyes. We're leaving YVR at 11 PM - this means getting to the airport no later than 9 PM, which is usually the very end of bedtime and the start of actual sleep for Benito. I know this is going to screw up his sleep schedule, but I was hoping that he'd sleep on the plane. Yes, it would be less sleep than he usually gets in a night, but sleep on that first flight (4 hrs), sleep on the second short flight (1.5 hrs), and nap on Friday before things get started? The other options would have involved me taking more time off work, and maybe I should've done that, but I also think this was the cheapest option, so that's probably the first reason I did it.
I hope it's not going to ruin Benito for days. At most, maybe it will make the traveling challenging, and maybe Friday a little bit. He bounces back well. He travelled super-well on all the flights and airports during the Spain trip. This time, however, I will be unaccompanied. *sigh* I am still undecided on bringing our umbrella stroller, as there is one in PGH for me to use. It might make it easier, to stroll a maybe-sleeping child through an airport. It no longer reclines, but maybe that can be fixed/rigged in the next 3 days. If I do not bring it, and he wants to sleep, then I would have to carry him with one arm, roll the carry-on luggage with the other. (I think for the short trip, I can have 1 carry-on and no checked bags. I will still need to check through the carseat, which I am for sure bringing.)
Honestly, I was not worried enough to not book these flights. I truly do believe he'll be fine. I'm just internalizing other people's worries and expectations of difficulty.
We'll be gone from Thursday eve through the following Wednesday eve. We leave PGH at 7 PM Wednesday (3 hr flight), have a 1 hr layover in Dallas (time to run to the next plane), and then a 4 hr flight home. We'll arrive home just after midnight local time. I hope Rick doesn't hate me completely on Thursday morning when there's every reason to believe Benito could be a tired little wreck and not want to wake up, or instead wake up hours early (even worse)... *sigh*
Moral of this story: check with Rick before ever booking travel that involves Benito again. We'll see how this goes. I'll report back eventually.
This entry was originally posted at http://avivasedai.dreamwidth.org/686056.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I booked flights that are red-eyes. We're leaving YVR at 11 PM - this means getting to the airport no later than 9 PM, which is usually the very end of bedtime and the start of actual sleep for Benito. I know this is going to screw up his sleep schedule, but I was hoping that he'd sleep on the plane. Yes, it would be less sleep than he usually gets in a night, but sleep on that first flight (4 hrs), sleep on the second short flight (1.5 hrs), and nap on Friday before things get started? The other options would have involved me taking more time off work, and maybe I should've done that, but I also think this was the cheapest option, so that's probably the first reason I did it.
I hope it's not going to ruin Benito for days. At most, maybe it will make the traveling challenging, and maybe Friday a little bit. He bounces back well. He travelled super-well on all the flights and airports during the Spain trip. This time, however, I will be unaccompanied. *sigh* I am still undecided on bringing our umbrella stroller, as there is one in PGH for me to use. It might make it easier, to stroll a maybe-sleeping child through an airport. It no longer reclines, but maybe that can be fixed/rigged in the next 3 days. If I do not bring it, and he wants to sleep, then I would have to carry him with one arm, roll the carry-on luggage with the other. (I think for the short trip, I can have 1 carry-on and no checked bags. I will still need to check through the carseat, which I am for sure bringing.)
Honestly, I was not worried enough to not book these flights. I truly do believe he'll be fine. I'm just internalizing other people's worries and expectations of difficulty.
We'll be gone from Thursday eve through the following Wednesday eve. We leave PGH at 7 PM Wednesday (3 hr flight), have a 1 hr layover in Dallas (time to run to the next plane), and then a 4 hr flight home. We'll arrive home just after midnight local time. I hope Rick doesn't hate me completely on Thursday morning when there's every reason to believe Benito could be a tired little wreck and not want to wake up, or instead wake up hours early (even worse)... *sigh*
Moral of this story: check with Rick before ever booking travel that involves Benito again. We'll see how this goes. I'll report back eventually.
This entry was originally posted at http://avivasedai.dreamwidth.org/686056.html. Please comment there using OpenID.