Wow, this was a busy day! After moving all weekend, Ryan, his dad and Alex drove both of the cars up to Cincinnati while Cooper and I stayed back until Tuesday to take a flight. Luckily, Cooper's aunt Ashley let us crash with her for a couple of nights and was willing to drive us to Pensacola to the airport on Tuesday afternoon. Once we got to the airport, the fiasco began!! Of course, I was running a little late getting to the airport and when we were checking in my bag was 8 lbs too heavy, so I had to purge some stuff so I wouldn't have to pay $80!! Once we made it to the gate, it was already time to board and let me say...it is not easy to stow luggage, get seated and buckle your seat belt, get a bottle ready, make sure you have the pacifier and an extra blanket, etc all while holding an infant in a completely booked flight! I felt like one BIG stress ball the entire time!
Before we even took off from Pensacola, Cooper decided he was hungry, so I fed him the ONE bottle I had brought for our flight (not such a great idea to only pump enough milk for one feeding...). After eating, he was a complete angel for the rest of the flight and was sound asleep when we landed in Atlanta. Fortunately, we did not have to de-plane in Atlanta because I tried to awaken him and make him feed (so I wouldn't have to breast feed on the 2nd flight), but he was not hungry and he had a complete melt down while we were waiting in Atlanta. It only took a few minutes to calm him down (thankfully) and he fell back asleep before we took off from Atlanta. For the 2nd leg of the trip I was sitting next to a really nice L&D nurse and she was so wonderful. Cooper was able to nurse pretty inconspicuously, I hope, during the flight and fell asleep while eating, so he was great! I think this whole ordeal was much more stressful for me than it was for him! I must say that once we landed in Dayton I was so relieved to see Ryan and Megan waiting for us!!!!!!!!!! All in all it was a pretty good travel day, but I am very happy that I will not be travelling with Cooper alone anytime in the near future. I certainly underestimated the difficulty of having a little one on a flight without anyone to help...
We are now settled at Ryan's father's house in Cincinnati and have been house hunting the last few days. We are really excited about finding a place to live and hope to have some more news for everyone soon! We miss all of our friends in Mobile already, but we are ecstatic to start a new chapter in our lives...
Katie