It was my turn for diaper duty, so I took her to the changing table in the men's bathroom (moving the janitor cart out of the way and wiping off the cobwebs). And at the critical juncture in the changing process, with Mimi's pants tucked under my chin, a new diaper under my arm, and my thigh pushing back against Mimi's searing desire to swan dive off the table, I heard my name called on the overhead intercom. Sonofabitch. Not again.
Running out of the bathroom, I made sure that I was at least in possession of my daughter, and that she was at least in possession of a diaper. I could deal with the rest later. Aimee had also heard my name called, and split the distance between meeting me to grab Mimi and keeping an eye on our luggage.
De-babied, I made my way to the check in counter, in what was becoming a very familiar process. I gave the agent my name, and she perked up and said, "Oh, I saw that you had a baby on your reservation." And before I could explain the one baby/two baby issue, she continued, "Do you want to sit in the bulkhead? The whole row is open."
Well, that was a pleasant surprise. During the buildup to this trip, Aimee and I had completely overthought our seating arrangement. We ended up picking a couple of nearby aisle seats that would allow Mimi to crawl around a bit and give one of us a break at strategic intervals. So there was a part of me that didn't want to throw in the towel on our plan. But then the other part of me hit the first part on the head and said, "Take the goddamn bulkhead row."
For anyone who has flown with a small child, the bulkhead row is kind of like the promised land. There is plenty of space for kids to crawl around, plus you get a special air crib that attaches in front of your seat for the baby to sleep in. (We had looked at booking these seats when we made the reservation, but it would have cost us an extra $1,000.) And to sweeten this deal, we would have all four seats in the row to ourselves. In other words, this was unfathomably good luck, and I was falling over myself to thank the American Airlines gate agent.
The next 13 hours were far easier than they should have been.
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| A full-sized adult human with room to play on the floor. |
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| Mimi complying with the Fasten Pacifier sign |
A lot of people tried to make it all the way to the bathroom without fawning over Mimi in the air crib. A lot of people failed.
