Monday was our flight to Paris to see Laurent’s dad. We tried to be smart about it and bought a 5:30pm departure, knowing that Chloe’s normal bed time is around 730-8pm and we figured that a night flight would guarantee all the lights in the cabin would be off for a good amount of the flight.

Packing the weekend leading up to the flight was out of control, so much harder than packing for just Laurent and myself. It’s not even packing her clothes and bibs that is the pain; it’s everything else. It’s her bedding and blankets so she smells something from home, her random one or two toys to comfort her, the ground oatmeal and cookies and emergency jars of baby food, her upright red seat, etc and etc and more etc. And of course there was a number of things we couldn’t pack until Monday morning that just made the whole ordeal exhausting in and of itself.

Then Grandma and Grandpa dropped us off at the airport. I forgot that it was Columbus Day Monday; didn’t even occur to me. Laurent was super smart and checked our baggage and got our boarding passes at the curb, so one long line averted. The security line for the gates, on the other hand, holy cow, it was so long that it was pretty much going past the agent counters, out into the main lobby and outside the main doors of the terminal. CRAZY. So we got in line. And I put the CUTE BABY on my shoulder for everyone to see, hoping that some TSA individual would take mercy on us and let us skip some portion of the queue. We were probably waiting for about 25 minutes and still at least 20 people away from the entrance of the roped security lines (yes the entrance, we had not even entered the official queue), when the TSA guard at the express lane for the crew waived us over. SCORE #1! So excited, wheeled ourselves straight up and had someone check our passports and boarding passes and off to the xray machines we went. They had me go through the normal metal detectors with Chloe in my arms instead of the fancy new xray machines. And then after, they did the strangest thing, another TSA had me hold my palms up and he wiped them with some sort of detector that he then put into a machine. I asked what they were looking for and he replied “explosives on your hands since you were holding the baby” and I thought to myself, “Really? Have people hidden explosives in the diaper of a baby or anywhere on a baby before?” I guess you never know.

Then we went to our gate and confirmed that our plane was not full and so Ms. Chloe had her own seat. SCORE #2!! We boarded the plane and got settled but Chloe was already getting a little stir crazy from all the commotion. We were sitting in the middle of plane with three seats, and so Laurent and I took the aisle seats and we put Chloe in between us. It wasn’t until we put the car seat down that Laurent realized that the person in front of Chloe was not going to be able to recline their seat. Laurent politely excused himself and told the couple in front of us, apologizing for the inconvenience; we thought we were lucky because no one was sitting next to the couple, so as long as both individuals sat in the aisle seats, they could both recline their seats. I can’t even begin to explain to you the reaction of the woman in front of us. To keep it short, she basically proceeded to give us a series of dirty looks, asked if we could turn the car seat around (of course not, not that it would have made a difference) and then told us that she was pregnant and needed to be comfortable as well. Seriously? It’s not like she didn’t have options – she could move to the aisle seat in front of me and recline her seat – or she could lay across her partner and sleep across three chairs (which is what she ended up doing). And if she truly was pregnant (because I totally think she was lying), then shouldn’t she realize that someday she’ll be in the same predicament? I just can’t. Maybe it’s because Laurent and I are naturally nice people (really we are) but had the roles been reversed, I can’t even fathom having the reaction that this individual had. For those of you who know my passion (i.e. hot temper), you can just imagine the four-letter words I would have liked to express to her, but for the sake of my daughter and the whole flight, I bit my tongue and kept quiet. There was one passenger on Laurent’s side that expressed genuine interest in the baby and even commented later on throughout the flight how well behaved Chloe was for her first flight, which was such a huge relief to hear. Note to self: when I see a mother with a baby on a flight, I’ll make sure to give her supporting words of encouragement; there’s really no reason to add to a mother’s stress by being negative or even nasty. And I’ll leave it at that. =0)

So the flight to France was seven hours long. Overall I think Chloe did great on the flight. She was most fussy at the beginning when we were stuck on the tar mat waiting to take off. I think it was because she was all worked up from boarding the plane (and dealing with the bad vibes of the psycho woman in front of us) and then she was confined to our seats. After dinner service and when the lights went out, she fell asleep as we walked the aisles and stayed asleep for about 2.5 hours which was another relief. Here’s an airport selfie of a very tired and jetlagged baby Chloe and I as we wait for Daddy to get our luggage.

And here’s a picture of the family with luggage in tow marking our first flight with Baby Chloe to Paris. Bonjour Paris!