Barrett's First Flight

Barret's birthday is just around the corner and he will be two years old. That means he will no longer be able to fly on American Airlines as a lap baby. Since I have about 12 to 14 business trips a year, I picked one of them to fly up early and bring Joan and Barrett with me. We looked at the schedule and saw that my Alabama trip would be perfectly timed for Barrett to be old enough to enjoy it but not too old to fly for free. I carefully picked a flight that was pretty empty and booked seats for Joan and me. It worked out perfectly. We had an open seat between us so Barrett would get his own window seat!

Staci and Brody drove the three of us to the airport. Barrett seemed excited and so did Brody until it was time for us to head into the airport. See if you can tell in this photo what Brody was thinking!

Barrett had fun waiting for the plane to arrive. He ate his Daddy Bar for breakfast, rode the escalator several times, watched the airport vehicles running around servicing the planes, and watched the airport train for a while. When our plane pulled into the gate we made one last bathroom stop and then gathered up all our stuff.

It was so neat seeing Joan and Barrett walking hand in hand down the ramp to our airplane. Inside the plane Barrett took a quick look into the cockpit and then headed to our seats. I had his car seat and I put in in place in the window seat and then stuffed his backpack under the seat in front of Barrett's seat.

Barrett was so good during the flight. He didn't complain about his ears at all. The flight was pretty short - 1.5 hours - but he ate, looked at a book, and spent some quiet time just watching me doze. When I woke up and looked at him he was looking at me and said "Daddy Steve take nap?"