Travel Plans

With much trepidation I took my near one year old on a three hour plane ride feeling grateful throughout that my husband was there for backup. We were very nice to the airline employees and they reserved an exra seat for us. I breathed a sigh of relieve. More room is always a good thing with JAC in tow.

The plane was delayed on the tarmac due to weather. When we finally took off JAC celebrated by crawling madly between Jess and I, jumping on the seat, grabbing for my glasses and banging on my window. I was just glad he was entertained. The second hour of the flight after a bout of screaming and some wrestling JAC went to sleep in Jess' arm. He slept for 45 minutes and I felt like we made it to Dallas without event. As we waited in Dallas on the tarmac for a gait to open Jess and I realized we had exactly 10 minutes to make our connecting flight.

We readied our gear, put JAC in his backpack and made a sprint through the DFW airport. We prayed. We ran and we prayed some more. We arrived at our gate just in time to watch our plane depart without us. This was not good. The next flight to Abilene was not for four hours and it was completely full. We were on standby - stuck in DFW with our rowdy child.

I think I was in near panic mode but Jess knew what to do. We went to Chili's and ate a leisurely lunch. We followed this up with a trip to the bookstore. All of a sudden it felt less like we were stuck and more like a mini-vacation. Then Jess made great discovery. There was a great kid's play place in the airport. I have always thought children have the ability to teach joy. Chasing my kid and husband around a playground, sliding down slides, I felt joyful.

We didn't make the next flight. We were the tenth passengers on the waiting list for one available seat. We spent five hours in DFW before we made a flight. I was grateful for finally reaching Abilene but both Jess and I agreed we were thankful for our time stuck in the airport as well. We met a lot of other cool stuck families. We got Starbucks but most importantly we slowed down and enjoyed being together.