A 7am flight meant we got to the airport around 5:30am. Jacob was doing pretty well, so we hoped that boded well for the day. I had spent weeks fretting about getting Jacob through security with minimal fuss, because while he is pretty good at following simple one and two step commands, anything more than that confuses him, which leads to frustration and tears. We know this for sure about airports because we had a TSA agent in Denver start yelling at him because he had to step through the metal detectors 3 times because he lost his balance and brushed his hand against the side and we couldn't get the guy to understand that he wasn't doing it on purpose. My biggest fear was that they were going to have to do the body scan on him.
Jacob did really well, and he wasn't even the one that held us up. That was me. I forgot to take my liquids out, which they didn't even catch, and was so focused on getting Jacob and all our crap through that I forgot to take off my shoes. They did catch that one and sent me back, but apparently not sleeping for 4 days + stressed = them taking pity on me and just making me walk back through. The flight to Los Angelos was pretty uneventful. Jacob behaved pretty well and watched movies and had me write down words for him. A woman passed me a note that said, "if you are his mom, you are a great one!", which made my week, month and year.
The problems started after we landed at LAX. Rick and Brandon ate some breakfast platter thing before we left, and Jacob and I took our muffins and water on the plane with us to eat on our flight. Jacob is usually a really good flyer, but upon landing he started coughing and I had just enough time to get a bag in front him before he threw up. The fog hadn't burned off of San Francisco yet, so we weren't going to be able to land there so we sat at the gate at LAX for 45 minutes. They let people off to go in an get breakfast from McDonalds and then get back on the flight with their ID, so Rick went and got some snacks for us.
After that, Jacob fired up the computer to watch more videos and the boys stole the new iPad that Rick had bought me to play Angry Birds (why I downloaded a game I don't play but they love when I said no one was going to touch the iPad but me is a whole 'nother story.)
At that point, they announced another delay, this time for 2 hours. And they were having us all deplane and were locking the plane behind us. So we didn't have to drag all our crap with us, but we didn't have access to it, either. You can tell Jacob wasn't impressed that I got the iPad without a 3G connection, can't you?
Rick tried to use his phone as a connection, but it was really slow.
So he settled for using it as a drawing pad. We finally got back on the plane and flew to San Francisco, where I really wanted to use my barf bag, but instead had to hold it open for Jacob while he used it for stomach emptying #2. We originally were supposed to land about 2 hours before Betty and Randy, but ended up landing about 30 minutes after them. We finally got them and got on the way to Stateline, NV (by Lake Tahoe).
Once you get past Sacramento and into the mountains, the road gets really curvy. You would think by now that me saying "Oh dear God" and turning green would be an indicator to take the curves a little more gently, but no. And as night follows day, and is our usual routine, 10 minutes after I said that, Jacob puked. Again. But because I was anticipating it, I was able to contain it. And because I have mega mom skills, I was able to catch batch #4 ten minutes later. I'm talented like that. By then, with the switch to Pacific time, Jacob was miserable and exhausted and was literally asking to go to bed in the most sweetly pathetic voice I've ever heard him talk in. When we stopped for gas and to use the restrooms, he had me buy him an ice cream bar and he just sat there and stared at it. (It was cool enough out that it didn't melt). We finally got to the condo and he waited just long enough for me to show him which room was ours before crawling into bed and finally putting and end to the day.
