Going Home
These three weeks, as always, went by really too fast. Once again we found ourselves having to say goodbye to everyone. We did have a nice send off, though.
On Sunday, Matt’s birthday, we had a nice lunch with Tizi’s family: her parents and her sister’s family were all there to celebrate and to say bye bye.Tiz’s mom prepared a wonderful 3 course lunch with some of Tizi’s favorite food (spinach and besciamelle tagliatelle, and green pepper filet mignon, and fruit cream cake and gelato). Keegan missed most of it, as he slept though the majority of it. He did wake up for dessert, though. Call him stupid! So he got the chance to eat gelato, and cream covered blueberries. Not bad.
happy birthday dad
He also got the chance to play some more with his cousins and spend some time with aunt and uncle.
our little pianist
We took the famous group photo, among many technical difficulties and many cameras (so the results are not the best…). And then, just like that, it was time for them to leave…
Tizi with mom and her sister Cinzia
The rest of the afternoon was spent between packing and saying goodbyes to friends. We actually managed to get everything done reasonably early, so we were able to catch some zzzz in preparation of a long trip home. And long it was. And stressful. Ironically, the solo flight was easier than the return, when there were two of us. I am not sure why, but a combination of scheduling, length of trip (it is always a few hours more when you fly west. Something about the winds…), general crankiness, maybe the sadness of leaving.
So, here is a lengthy description of our painful fight…feel free to skip it, but this maybe will explain why we really don’t travel much with Keegan.
Anyway, we arrived at the airport bright an early for our 10.45am flight. No much line at check in, but we started with our first surprise: Delta decided to change our assigned seats (I guess they switched airplane) and, surprise! we are not seating together. Not even close. Fortunately Matt thought about checking it AFTER we left the check in line, so I went immediately to complain.The agents in Milan were super nice and apologetic, so they not only seated us together, but they also put using the bulkhead section, so we would have more space. Unfortunately they could not switch our seats in Atlanta, but they said they place a note in our reservation and to talk to the agent there.
The flight to Atlanta was not too bad, considering. The bulkhead seats allowed us to have more space for Keegan to get up and walk around…or for Tizi to sit on the floor as Keegan enjoyed her seat. We played, read books, did multiple poopie diaper change in the cramped airplane bathroom, did lots of eating…basically everything but sleeping. He did feel asleep the moment we sat down on the plane and slept for about an hour and then fell asleep again as we were landing…but the whole 9 hours in between he was wide awake.
We also watched some photos of Keegans friends on the iPod. We were trying to get him all excited about getting back to his old life and it seemed to be working, as he was constantly repeating the names Yadira, Isella, Titti, Hannah…
We landed on tine in the huge Atlanta airport: it took us more than 15 minutes to reach the gate after landing! We had a long layover, which was a good thing since we had to clear immigration. So, with Keegan sleeping on his stroller we started clearing security; now US residents get the same treatment as visitors: full fingerprints and iris scan…so pleasant. Then we grabbed our bags, and we had to dig through them because one of them was beeping…we really did not want to get our bag blown up! It was just the baby monitor, but still…then, after custom, back to security screening. Why do we have to do two screenings, since we never left the airport is beyond me, but here we are, trying to pass all of our crap through again, waking up Keegan to get his stroller through x-ray….and his car seat back for multiple screening…
I really would like to know is all this extra screening EVER resulted in finding something suspicious or dangerous, because at this point it only seems to be inconveniencing people that have done anything wrong.
Anyway, once we cleared everything and Keegan settled back down and fell back asleep we went to the gate to change our seat assignments. We had about 2.5 hours before the flight, so we thought there should not be any problems. We were wrong. We showed up at the gate which was already showing our flight number on the board and the agent asked us if we were going to San Diego. When we said yes, she barely looked at us and said: “5.55”. Is that some kind of cryptic Delta message? What is that supposed to mean??? With a very annoyed tone she said she will not even look at our flight till 5.55. So we went to grab something to eat and tried to rest. It is about 10pm for us at this point. So we wait and then we come back. The attitude did not change. Despite being there an hour before departure she said there was nothing she could do, the flight was completely full and all seats assigned. Showing her our reservation with our seats together and explaining our situation did not even make her look at us. No apologies, no attempts to be helpful. I have to admit that at this point I am pissed, and not very polite, since it is THEIR screw up, once again, and she was not willing to help us in any way. She sent us to customer service if we wanted to talk about it. We did, and they were even less helpful, telling us that it was the agent responsibility to re-seat us. So we went back, and still more attitude. So we are waiting to board, hoping some kind soul would switch seats. In the meantime, at least 7 stand-byes get seated!!!!! And they are all in our area of the plane: one of them gets the seat next to me!!!! How is this possible, if there are no seats? Shouldn’t we have precedence in seat assignments? Obviously not.
Chuck this one to DELTA AIRLINES SUCKS!!!!!!!!!
So we got in tired, cranky and pissed off. Fortunately Matt and I were in front of each other, and he had an aisle and I had a window, so we could easily switch the middle seat with the window. Still we were not happy. And guess who else was not happy? Keegan. He woke up as we got him off his stroller, and never fell back asleep again…so we had a 5 hours flight in a small, crammed airplane, with a kid who is awake in the middle of the night, super cranky and that only wants mom, who is also at her wits’end, and very tired. What a fun flight. Sleeping was basically impossible since it was Monday Night Football and everyone was watching the Charger losing its game on the tvs and hollering in disapproval.
Fortunately, we did not have too many crying fits, just because I was able to walk with him up and down the aisle, but I was basically in tears:tired and frustrated. Keegan was saying “mama, mama, mama” non stop, and now wanted to sit on my seat, and could not understand why he could not seat in my seat. Matt tried to distract him and give me breaks, but nothing was working. The only quiet moments we had was when we popped in the Underwater Adventures DVD: then he would sit, transfixed, for about 10 minutes at a time…and then he was bored again.
Fortunately, even this flight came to an end: we landed on time, and by the time we got to the baggage claim, all of our bags were already out. We got a cab, and we finally made it home. Keegan was very excited to be back and took all his toys out and looked around, getting re-adjusted. Putting him to bed was not easy, nor keeping him there: he woke up pretty much every hour.
I was trying to let him cry out a little while I was doing dishes in the kitchen (Matt was out for a Milk run), when all of the sudden his cries became less urgent, but also somewhat louder, and then stopped. I turned around and … SURPRISE!!!!… Keegan is in the hallway, with a surprised look, staring at me. Holy cow! Now he can climb out of his crib. This is just great. Could he wait for another week or so? Noooo. And he did not even fall, or struggled: just like that, he was out. Oh joy! That made our nights even more complicated…but this is a different story.
We comforted ourselves thinking that, no matter how difficult the trip and the adjustment time was we got to spend lots of time with family and good friends, and this made it all worthwhile.
So we end this lengthy post with some good memories:
At the park
Keegan took a shower, just like the big boys
Keegan is starting early: he is ogling hot women in the Armani catalog, and showing his approval
We have found this butterfly on the sidewalk when we were going out for a stroll. It was probably dying for the cold; it did not move for hours, so on our way back from our walk, we picked it up.
Keegan was fascinated by the colors
