April 14: We just got home from a great weekend in Wichita visiting Bryan’s family. The whole weekend was a lot of fun, but our flight home was a little more exciting than I prefer my flights to be. First of all, I can no longer go around thinking that my children don’t cry during flights. Andrew has probably flown 20 or 30 times, and he’s never made much of a fuss. And the first three legs of our weekend trip, Sylvia was quiet as well. But the flight from Memphis to Madison was different. She was mad from the moment we got on the plane, and although she fell asleep (from utter screaming exhaustion) for a while, she was inconsolable nearly the entire time. She had zero interest in nursing, which Bryan noted makes me a little bit like Superman in the face of kryptonite. So, that was fun.
Then when our plane got to Madison, we started circling instead of landing. After a bit, the pilot got on the intercom and announced that we were maneuvering to Madison’s longest runway because the plane’s flaps weren’t going down. Therefore, the plane was going to be going a lot faster upon landing than usual, and they needed a long runway to give time to stop. Wow. That’s exciting.
The emergency row folks got extra briefings, we were told that the landing would be hard and fast, and we should really make sure all our belongings were tightly secured. In order to prevent Sylvia from becoming a projectile, I got out my coat and zipped her up in it. The pilot said he’d done this kind of landing before, and the flight attendant wasn’t seeming too phased, and the tenor of the passengers was calm, a little baffled, and probably slightly nervous. It wasn’t until we after landed (there was a big thump and a lot of breaks as we stopped) and saw all the fire trucks and ambulances with their lights flashing…waiting for us that I felt worried:)
Many of our fellow passengers took pictures of the plane surrounded by emergency vehicles. Sylvia stopped crying when we got off the plane. I think at this point, my brain has re-congealed after melting from an hour or so of having her cry on my lap:)
OK, off to Sylvia’s two-month doctor’s appointment!