We made it!

Whew! The trip actually went really well. And the funny thing was that a lot of the imagining and planning I did came in handy! [Hand patting self on back] : ) Paul was so kind to help me through security and everything before work. It was so nice to have his help! But one crazy thing I learned about the charm of a darling baby girl--even TSA employees will coo and treat you gently if you bring one along. It was surreal. They kept saying things like, "oh don't worry about it" and "let me help you." Stunning.

By the time we had gotten to this point, no fewer than 2 out of 3 paci's had hit the floor. The third went down minutes after we were seated on the plane. Doh! But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here is Ella in Daddy's arms waiting apprehensively to get on board.

So like I said, we lost the third paci just shortly before takeoff. But it was ok because then it was time to give Ella the bottle to help her ears out. And it totally worked! After we initially got settled in our seat (the nice steward put us in one with no one next to us), Ella really hardly fussed even a little bit. I bet the man who I heard mutter "blah blah blah . . . screaming baby" while we were getting comfortable felt bad when he saw how good she was the rest of the flight. Here she is sleeping sweetly on the plane:

The same nice steward even fixed my Dunkin Donuts coffee with cream and sugar for me and brought me a cup of hot water which I used to clean the paci's and warm up the bottle for the descent (feeding schedule is out the window today). And I got to enjoy my coffee because Ella wasn't crying, yay! Then after bottle #2 on the way down , we got to see Grandma!

It can be done folks! (But we still do need prayer for the return trip!)