Midnight to midnight - a 30-hour day.
Nov. 24th, 2004 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miekecBack. Home.
Waking up at 6:45 started a loooong day. Getting up (too early!) and going and to the airport was a breeze, thanks to my parents' help. So was checking in and going through security, mostly. Aside from them "seeing a suspected item in my backpack" and then never finding it after re-scanning twice and unpacking it. Since this time I *knew* there was nothing even slightly untoward in there, I wasn't worried at all. Just slightly amused.
Our flights were uneventful - a good thing! Karin was screaming bloody murder during take-off and landing on the first leg (Amsterdam to Reykjavik). Not because she was scared. Noooo. Miss "I'm not getting it *my* way" didn't want to sit still. Not in my lap, not in a chair-with-seatbelt of her own. Since that was not an option, she ended up in my lap, howling at a tremendous volume - luckily not fully audible, since it was mostly muted by my hand. The other hand and elbows and legs were busy keeping her from crawling off my lap and/or over the chairs in front of me and/or over the chairs behind me. It was almost a workout... she's gotten strong!
Of course, as soon as take-off was over, and I let her go, she was fine again. A few more sniffles and a few stuffed-animal cuddles later, she was happily sticking cling-on stickers onto the window. Meanwhile, I was still recovering from the rejected-mom and bad-mom syndromes.
An all too familiar scene during landing. Again, almost immediate stoppage of screaming as soon as all constraints stopped. I had hoped to avoid this, since by all reckoning she should have been fast asleep, exhausted. By our body-time it was now around 17:00, and she had missed her 13:00-15:00 nap. Sleep, however didn't happen for another hour, when she cried herself to sleep after I successfully removed a hard cookie-crumb that had gotten into her eye. Not her best day so far. On the other hand, she managed to stay asleep until the landing wheels touched ground in Boston, over 5 hours later! This included getting her onto the plane, since she fell asleep in my lap in the waiting area. Not a peep during moving her. Nor take-off. Thank god. But by now, even though I was exhausted too, I didn't seem to be able to go to sleep anymore. Waaaah! Figures.
She was in a *much* better mood after waking up, and we also flew through all checkpoints in Boston. Amazing. I realized I had hardly been checked on this flight back. Sure, passport and boarding pass. But only once a security checkpoint. And never those standard TSA desks with silly questions. Very strange. No complaints, but just very surprised.
We made it to the arrival hall, and John actually managed to escape from his work to come pick us up. A good thing, since there was no way I could have managed all my luggage at this point. I had acquired too many extras. a few tax-free things from Schiphol (Amsterdam Airport), a bikeseat for a colleague that was now lashed to Karin's back-carrier, so she wouldn't fit into that anymore. I'd have needed at least 2 extra hands if I were to attempt a T ride. But, luckily, no need.
Home was a very nice place to be. A 30-hour day might seem like a good thing at times, but if it has to be like this, I think I'll pass.
(I had locked this entry at first, for fear of people calling DSS on me. I'm always afraid of that when I stop Karin from screaming at full volume. Sigh. Sometimes I hate this country. Or maybe I should say, this sensitive era.)
Waking up at 6:45 started a loooong day. Getting up (too early!) and going and to the airport was a breeze, thanks to my parents' help. So was checking in and going through security, mostly. Aside from them "seeing a suspected item in my backpack" and then never finding it after re-scanning twice and unpacking it. Since this time I *knew* there was nothing even slightly untoward in there, I wasn't worried at all. Just slightly amused.
Our flights were uneventful - a good thing! Karin was screaming bloody murder during take-off and landing on the first leg (Amsterdam to Reykjavik). Not because she was scared. Noooo. Miss "I'm not getting it *my* way" didn't want to sit still. Not in my lap, not in a chair-with-seatbelt of her own. Since that was not an option, she ended up in my lap, howling at a tremendous volume - luckily not fully audible, since it was mostly muted by my hand. The other hand and elbows and legs were busy keeping her from crawling off my lap and/or over the chairs in front of me and/or over the chairs behind me. It was almost a workout... she's gotten strong!
Of course, as soon as take-off was over, and I let her go, she was fine again. A few more sniffles and a few stuffed-animal cuddles later, she was happily sticking cling-on stickers onto the window. Meanwhile, I was still recovering from the rejected-mom and bad-mom syndromes.
An all too familiar scene during landing. Again, almost immediate stoppage of screaming as soon as all constraints stopped. I had hoped to avoid this, since by all reckoning she should have been fast asleep, exhausted. By our body-time it was now around 17:00, and she had missed her 13:00-15:00 nap. Sleep, however didn't happen for another hour, when she cried herself to sleep after I successfully removed a hard cookie-crumb that had gotten into her eye. Not her best day so far. On the other hand, she managed to stay asleep until the landing wheels touched ground in Boston, over 5 hours later! This included getting her onto the plane, since she fell asleep in my lap in the waiting area. Not a peep during moving her. Nor take-off. Thank god. But by now, even though I was exhausted too, I didn't seem to be able to go to sleep anymore. Waaaah! Figures.
She was in a *much* better mood after waking up, and we also flew through all checkpoints in Boston. Amazing. I realized I had hardly been checked on this flight back. Sure, passport and boarding pass. But only once a security checkpoint. And never those standard TSA desks with silly questions. Very strange. No complaints, but just very surprised.
We made it to the arrival hall, and John actually managed to escape from his work to come pick us up. A good thing, since there was no way I could have managed all my luggage at this point. I had acquired too many extras. a few tax-free things from Schiphol (Amsterdam Airport), a bikeseat for a colleague that was now lashed to Karin's back-carrier, so she wouldn't fit into that anymore. I'd have needed at least 2 extra hands if I were to attempt a T ride. But, luckily, no need.
Home was a very nice place to be. A 30-hour day might seem like a good thing at times, but if it has to be like this, I think I'll pass.
(I had locked this entry at first, for fear of people calling DSS on me. I'm always afraid of that when I stop Karin from screaming at full volume. Sigh. Sometimes I hate this country. Or maybe I should say, this sensitive era.)
