Traveling with Anya

Lots to update: Anya successfully flew to LA and back without major incident. It is difficult to fly with a baby. It starts with the packing.... a three day trip to LA should require no more then a carry on bag and a purse right? WRONG when you take a baby you have more stuff then you thought possible. From bibs to diapers, toys to breastpumps- everything must go.

Security is an interesting process now. Not only do you still have to nearly disrobe yourself in front of perfect strangers but you must remove the baby's coat and shoes as well. Was there a baby shoe bomber.....I think not. Safety first yada yada yada. So we wake our peacefully sleeping child, remove her from the car seat and take most of her clothes off. Meanwhile no one is telling me what to do with the collapsible snap and go and car seat. Do I wheel it through the metal detector? At least I was smart enough to take the baby out. Oh no, you must break down the entire stroller and somehow shove it through the conveyor belt detector. Once on the other side of the x-ray machine they confiscate my bottle of breast milk to test it. We are busy passing Anya back and forth, reconstructing our stroller, putting our shoes and clothes back on, what a mess.

So the major message in all this is PLEASE be patient with the people in line traveling with children- it is much harder on them then it is on you to wait a couple extra minutes while they try to organize themselves. OK I'm getting down off my soap box now.

The plane ride was fine. Myles would get up (if the seat belt sign allowed him too) to swing Anya if she was getting fussy and needed to sleep. I fed her on take off and the pressure change never seemed to bother her on the way up or down. There was very little crying either way but that was mainly due to our maintenance of the situation trying to head off any fussiness before it began. Kudos to those that travel singly with their baby, I don't know how you do it.

LA was nice and a bit warmer than here- the Ritz at Marina Del Rey was gorgeous as expected. We were excited to swim but the pool was too cold and the hot tub too warm so we took a swim in the bathtub. The groom was one of Myles's good buddies and Myles was in the wedding. Friday night we went to the rehearsal dinner and left the babies with some sitters the Ritz recommended. Along with Anya we had the Piskel's baby Lucy, and the Boswell's baby Owen all staying at the Ritz. When the babysitters arrived none of us wanted to leave our kids with them. They were scary to say the least. But we had no choice so off to dinner we went leaving our precious babies with scary strangers. We called every hour or so and within a three hour window all three babies had woken up at least once. The hardest part was knowing we would be leaving them again the next night for even longer. Thankfully the wedding was at the Ritz so we could check in and the second set of babysitters were so much better.

If you can't tell from the pictures we spent a lot of time in our hotel rooms and Anya loved all her time on the king bed. She and Lucy had a great time playing together too.

Returning to Seattle on Sunday we were exhausted and so was Anya. Her schedule was all wacky and none of us had slept that well but we all had a great time.