My First Plane Ride
I had my first plane ride this past week. We flew from San Jose to Detroit and then drove from there to Ann Arbor. So far, I like every mode of transportation I’ve been on and the plane is not exception. Thanks to a law created by Laura Bush (according to the flight attendant) I’m guaranteed a window seat whenever I fly. This is great although I’m still a little too short to see out the window. I like the dull hum of the jet engine. It makes me so sleepy…yawn. I slept pretty much the whole way during the flight. In fact, I was so sleepy that my Mommy had great difficulty rousing me to give me a little milk so my ears would get unblocked on takeoff and landing. Happily, I got enough good sucks in to make my ears pop, so I felt just fine.

While normally passengers around a young baby dread the trip, the folks around me looked with delight at the end of the trip and told me how cute and wonderful I was. I’m not like the other kids I guess, I just like to dream of flying around in airplanes.

The next day, I got to ride around in a new kind of car, a Subaru, driven by a realtor who was showing my Mommy and Daddy some places they might like to live in. I checked these places out too and pretty much liked them all equally. They were all a lot bigger than our little apartment in Palo Alto. Once again, I made a good impression. The realtor said I was a perfect baby because of my excellent manners.

The night after seeing the realtor, my Mommy was feeding me in the hotel room when she smashed her foot off of a narrow door frame leading to the bathroom. Mommy was very unhappy—she had the same angry purple face I get when I’m really hungry—and she could not walk very well. The next day, we went to a place called the hospital where they fix hurt people like Mommy. Before they fix them, though, they make them wait four hours to make sure they’re really hurt and not just faking it. At the end, Mommy got to wear a special bootie show for her broken toe and was hobbling around on crutches. This made our trip to the airport really fun. I got to ride in a wheelchair through the airport on Mommy’s lap. Daddy pushed us both as well as all our carry-on luggage from the entrance of the airport to the gate, which the airline had thoughtfully located the maximum distance away.

Getting off the airplane, Mommy got to ride in a really neat form of transportation. I was envious. In San Jose, where we landed, rather than having a jetway leading directly to the terminal, they have an old-fashioned system whereby they wheel steps up to the plane and the people walk down to the tarmac. Well, Mommy couldn’t negotiate the steps, so instead they pulled up this big forklift thing and moved the steps out of the way. Mommy was then hoisted down in the forklift and whisked away in the wheelchair to the car. What a trip! My trips are always filled with many exciting events—blizzards, lost wallets, broken feet, forklifts, and so on.

Because my Mommy cannot move around very well, my Daddy has been at home all day these past several days taking care of lots of things. For instance, when I want to be picked up and bounced around, my Daddy is there to do it. I like that.

Recently, Mommy mentioned that in a month I would be old enough to hold a rattle on my own. My Daddy, having infinite faith in my abilities, insisted that I could do it now. He quickly pulled out a rattle and started trying to get me to hold it. I grasped it firmly (I like gripping things) and occasionally waved it around. When I did that, it made an unexpected noise, which caused me to smile. I even flung it down to the ground a couple of times. Best of all, from Daddy’s perspective, I did all of this with my left hand. My Daddy is convinced that I have an excellent chance to have a long career as a modestly effective middle relief pitcher if only I end up being left handed. We shall see.

Today was a hot day, and I was perspiring. Occasionally, it would get so hot that I would complain and my Daddy would have to figure out some way to make it cooler. At the end of the day, I got to take a bath, which was cool and very refreshing. Now I’m a clean and shiny happy baby.