I was antsy to see my dad who I hadn't seen in months, so we decided to pack up the WHOLE family and travel the hour and a half to the JFK airport. Little did we know that what would initially be a planned 4 hour trip would turn into 9. Yes, I did say 9.
After getting stuck in traffic (not a surprise) we arrived at the airport and dropped my mom off at the door. After packing Sawyer into a stroller, with my rockin' carseat coverup and busting Lily out of the car, we started to hurry up to the airport to catch my dad on his layover. Problem was - hurrying was out of the question not even a week after giving birth my body wouldn't allow me to walk faster than a turtle's pace. When we found my parents we had a joyful reunion and Bapa got to meet his first grandson. He scoffed at me insisting to put on smelly hand sanitizer, but I wasn't about to let airline hands touch the little guy. It was fun to see him for a bit and then we took off.
It wasn't going to be too bad. With the traffic we'd already added an extra hour to our trip, but 5 hours was manageable. When my calm little guy started to cry I reached behind me blindly to find the pacifier until we could stop and instead found my hand and the pacifier covered in, well, juicy, gooey, orange poopoos. It was a huge blowout, and it had to happen in rush hour traffic in NYC. Perfect. With nowhere to stop, and I sure wasn't going to pull into any unsanitary place in the middle of NYC to attempt this job, we were all subject to the wailings and stress of a new infant in poopy distress.
Finally I saw a sign for Applebees in New Rochelle which seemed a little more sanitary than my other options. We pulled in and I got to spend a good 45 minutes in the bathroom herding traffic away from my wailing infant on the changing table I had decorated with 10 layers of paper towels as I attempted to sponge bath him and give his carseat a good cleaning with nothing but hand soap and those "wave your hand in front of them to get 5 inches of paper towels and then wait 3 seconds while it resets itself" devices.
Let me tell you, I adore standing in a public restroom breastfeeding too. It was super fun.
Finally I immerged from the bathroom only to swap Sawyer for Lily and return to the changing table. Our server must have thought we were nuts. Once everyone was settled and I quit freaking out that people were breathing on my newborn we ate and hit the road again with a still poopy carseat (there is only so much a brown paper towel can do) and a full stomach for all.
In a week and a half we are supposed to return to the same airport and see my sister and parents on a layover. I am up in the air as to how this is all going to go down, or if it should go down. On one hand I won't be able to see my sister (whom I already HAVEN'T seen for 20 months) for another year, and on the other hand I don't want to relive those 9 hours. What are the chances he'll have another blowout? I can't imagine leaving him at home for 9 hours as we are "bosom buddies" right now. I'm just not sure what I'm going to do and what I should do (two seperate issues).
