Aug 29, 2005

We're Home!

I hope to get back into the posting groove by Wednesday, but in the meantime, suffice it to say that as wonderful as Hawaii was, it's good to be home and know that I'll be sleeping in my own bed. There's just something about hotel beds that prevents me from getting a truly good night's sleep, so I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning.

Our son wasn't quite as angelic on the flight coming back, but he was still pretty good. I must give credit where credit is due, though - it was my husband who really kept our baby calm when he got uppity. If I haven't mentioned it before, I need to say it now: my husband is amazing at taking care of our son. We both highly recommend two first class seats over three coach seats - the extra space in and around the seats is extremely helpful, and the crew is attentive and accommodating.

The first class lounge at LAX didn't have its own restrooms; the ladies room outside had a changing table. On the flight to Hawaii, the lavatory in first class didn't have a changing table, so we had to go to the one closest to the front in coach.

The first class lounge for Hawaiian Airlines in Honolulu had its own restrooms, but there wasn't a changing table, per se. There were two wide vanity counters, so I used one of those to change my baby before we got on the plane. On the flight back to LA, the first class lavatory did have a changing table. I actually can't tell you what it's like to change a diaper in that small a space because my husband did it on both flights, but I can at least tell you that it is possible.

Going through security was a big pain, mainly because we had to take our son out of the car seat and put that through the X-ray machine, along with the stroller. With all of our bags, shoes and baby gear, it seemed like we were putting a million different things on the conveyer belt. (A friendly reminder: Don't put your purse on the conveyer belt until one of you is ready to go through the metal detector and wait for it on the other side. You don't want someone to make off with it while you're still putting the rest of your luggage through the X-ray machine.)

The trip was also the first time we strapped the Graco SnugRide car seat directly into the car, instead of using the car seat base. It is obviously a bigger hassle than using the base, but it worked surprisingly well. It also gave me a taste of what's to come, since our son is about to outgrow the SnugRide and I will soon have to strap him in and out of the "big boy" car seat while it's in the car.

That's it for now. The baby needs a bath and then it's time (I hope!) for sleep.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I finally got a chance to read your blog while on vacation. Very nice! I can't believe you have time to do all this with a baby. Anyhow, our flight to Hawaii (in coach) this time was a little nicer because there was an extra seat in our row (long story about a flight delay). So at least there was more space for Ryan to lie down, stand, even crawl a little. We're still debating what to do for the next vacation, child fare seat vs. first class. I guess it depends on the price. My mom is a member of the Pualani Gold club so we got to use the first class lounge of America West in Phoenix. It was pretty nice, yup, those bathrooms help a lot. Yeah, security was such a hassle. The first trip, we had a video camera that we didn't know we had to take out of the bag so it was sitting at the bottom of our backpack. So I didn't bring it this time. Anyhow, talk to you later.