The flight home went great! This was probably a small-m miracle due to our prayers when the whole situation was set up to be a disaster.
The day before I had felt very ill all day (and I suspect, so had John). I wondered whether I could even fly home so explored my options for changing flights: all options involved a lot of money and limited return options (because one of our tickets was purchased with free points instead of money). I suspect that because of my anxiety about whether I would even be able to fly I didn't sleep all night. The alarm went off at 3:30 a.m. Friday and I was dreading my day.
Remember, John is a toddler who has to have all the heavens align in order for him to sleep. He does not sleep on travel days. On the airplane flights to California, he slept for maybe 15 minutes one time--that was it. So imagine my shock when we got settled in to our first leg of the flight, John crawled into my lap, and he fell fast asleep within seconds! He slept the entire first leg, which was about an hour.
The first hour-long layover went well and then we boarded our three-hour flight. Each seat had its own television screen, so I purchased John "Horton Hears a Who." He wouldn't keep his earphones on, so he couldn't hear the audio, but he was mostly transfixed anyway. A couple of hours later, I sensed he was getting manic, so I held him on my lap and rocked him. He did begin crying, but three minutes later he was fast asleep and remained so for the last 45 minutes of the flight.
Then we faced the monster: a four-hour layover! There was nowhere I could safely let John run off some steam because either I'd have to leave my luggage sitting somewhere unguarded or I'd have to carry it with me while I ran after John. We spent one hour walking up and down the small terminal with John in his stroller: he was quite entertained. We spent some more time eating dinner at a sit-down place. Then I put John in my Ergo and walked for another hour. He promptly fell asleep on me, so even though my back hurt from carrying a 25-pound toddler on my front and a heavy backpack on my back, and my feet hurt like the dickens from walking with sandals on cement, I persevered because one doesn't risk waking a sleeping toddler at times like those!
The last leg of the flight went well too, with John spending most of the time flirting with a toddler and baby seated behind us.
It was so great to see Chris again. He greeted us with roses at the airport, sunflowers at home, and homemade cookies. We went to bed late, but John even slept soundly when normally he falls victim to night terrors on travel days because he is over exhausted.
Praise be to God!
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