What we Learned on Our Trip to Iowa

We returned safely tonight from our adventure in mid America. Whew – a 3 day trip with a one-year-old is tiring. Maybe that is an understatement . . . it’s exhausting. What once would have been a grab-your-bag, no-problem type of trip becomes quite another beast when a toddler is involved!

We journeyed to Waterloo, Iowa, to attend the wedding of Jim’s younger cousin, Keith. He is a super nice guy – so is his new wife – and their wedding was lovely. It’s funny when you go to a wedding in another area of the country; they have such different traditions. At this wedding (as with all of the other mid-west weddings we’ve attended), they did a “dollar dance” with the bride and groom. Over the course of maybe 6, 7, 8 slow songs, various friends and family line up to dance with the people of honor, and they give them various amounts of money to have the honor of that dance. It’s a nice tradition – especially for the bride and groom, who certainly earned quite a bit of spending money for their fab honeymoon in Europe. We didn’t do it at our wedding. I look back now and think of all the awesome ways we could have spent that money.

I digress . . . back to the traveling with toddler-in-tow. It was not that bad, really. Meg is a good kid, so we really don’t have to get that antsy about a trip like this with her. The only major difference in this – her 4th or 5th time flying, I’ve lost count – was that I was not going to nurse her on the flight. My trusty fall-back is no longer . . . she’d have to gut this one out all on her own. We were going to have to learn some new tricks to get her through the flight. We also had to take a connection in Cincinnati, as there are few direct flights from Atlanta to the busting metropolis of Cedar Rapids, Iowa . . . which meant getting to the wedding was a 2-flight affair.

On the first flight, Meg was VERY tired. The flight left at 10:50am, about an hour and a half past nap time . . . which you would think would be a GOOD thing. Tired baby = sleep on the flight. Well, sort of. As relatively new parents, Jim and I are always learning . . . and on this flight, we learned that Meg does not like to sleep in your arms. After a 20 minute effort to get her to sleep on my chest, arms, shoulder, and/or any other part of my upper body, I pretty much flug her down on the open seat next to me and pulled her head into my lap. I was flustered . . . but this rash attempt to show her my frustration was met with those eyes ANY parent knows . . . the ones that are super heavy and start rolling back as sleep ensues. She was falling asleep! She just didn’t want to be held! I was so relieved. I joyfully petted her sweet little head (I wasn’t mad any more) for about 3 minutes, and she was sound asleep. The nap only lasted 30 minutes, but it was enough to recharge those batteries and get her back to a happy-go-lucky Meg. The rest of that flight was a breeze.

The second flight from Cincinnati to Cedar Rapids was going to be better . . . it was one hour, and Meg would make it without a nap and – we hoped – without too much whining. We were right. She was a doll and played with her books and dolls for most of the flight. What made that flight challenging was the terribly rude and overly strict flight attendant. She kept reminding Jim and I that Meg needed to be buckeled in an open seat or sitting in our laps for the entire flight. Uh, ever flown with a one-year-old? Ever SEEN a one-year-old? They are not going to sit still either in a seat or a lap for an hour long flight. We discovered that Meg was perfectly happy if she could stand up in the area where our feet were – not even in the aisle – or stand up in the her seat. She wasn’t bothering a soul. . . but the stinkin’ Delta lady sure made it hard for us. Every time the seatbelt Nazi was coming, we’d have to strap Meg in or snuggle her in our arms . . . which would interrupt her playing . . . which would annoy her. That made the flight a little less pleasant that it could have been, that is for sure.

When finally we arrived in Cedar Rapids, Jim and I were both pretty tired from our trip, and so was Meg. She fell asleep as soon as we got in the car and slept for an hour in her car seat. Hey, any way she can get sleep is OK for me. We’d made it, and that was all that mattered.

The flight home today was direct, and we used our new-found knowledge to make it a much better trip. She played in our laps for the first half of the flight, and when she gave us the universal nap signal (her hand to her head to sign “lovey” and a big, huge yawn), we quickly spread her across our two laps and let her fall off to a blissful sleep. She slept until we landed. What a joy. On that flight, we got a lot of, “What a great baby! She’s so cute!” comments. Funny, we didn’t get any of those on the way TO Iowa . . .

The weekend in Iowa was great. Once we got there, we had a great time seeing Jim’s family – all of the 20ish Dahlbys in attendance. It was our “debut” – if you will – as parents. In other words, it was our first big Dahlby event with Meg. I think it went very well . . . and it always helps that Meg is so well behaved and fun to be around. That is probably thanks to what we learned on our LAST vacation with Meg . . . she NEEDS her naps. You can’t push her to skip them too many days in a row, or she becomes a demon that won’t sleep at all. Like I said, we are always learning . . . we used that knowledge on this trip, and it helped make our adventure a lot of fun. Meg made us look like we are fantastic parents, which is OK by me.

So, now we know how to GET somewhere with Meg, and we know what she can/can’t handle when we get there. Hopefully the trip home at Christmas time will be a piece of cake (and hopefully we won’t have any pain-in-the-a** flight attendants!).