Puerto Rico: Leaving There

We left the beach house at 9 a.m. yesterday morning and headed back to San Juan via Crisi's mom's house where we stopped for lunch and a much needed travel break. The day went extremely smoothly -- I mean eerily extremely smoothly -- until we got on the plane. The kids were perfectly well behaved on the 2 hour drive to San Juan, the airport was not at all crowded, etc.

Our flight home was scheduled for 4:40 pm, which I have sinced learned is a horrible, horrible time to fly with a 20 month old. Rebecca missed her nap and started acting up pretty much as soon as we sat down. Being total idiots and cheap, we did not buy her a seat since she was still young enough to fly free as a lap child. Additionally we did not have with us either of the two most essential things for any flight with a toddler: Benadryl and a DVD player. Either one might have saved us, but alas we had neither. Anyway, she did not sleep like she had on the flight down -- apparently after her first plane ride she wasn't scared of flying anymore so felt no need to snuggle into my armpit like she had before. Instead she spent pretty much the whole time hitting, scratching, and pinching me. And screaming - let's not forget the screaming.

At one point, about two hours into the flight, she hit me hard across the face and I COULDN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE! I Burst into tears, and handed Rebecca to Joel. Ben took one look at me and burst into tears. Rebecca, having been relegated to Joel's arms, burst into screaming, bawling, probably-heard-throughout-the-whole-plane tears. Joel I am sure was wishing for the plane to go down in the ocean at that point -- any possible escape!

After that, we managed to pull ourselves together. Rebecca calmed down a bit as long as The Itsy Bitsy Spider was sung repeatedly to her, and her hand motions, though preferable to hitting and pinching, were dangerous because at "down came the rain and washed the spider out" she would fling her arms wide violently.

Ben, sensing the very tense mood and totally freaked out at the sight of his mother crying (poor Ben) spent two hours reading the Sky Mall catalog and the third quietly washing the window with his cup of Sprite.

Once we got off the plane, everything improved. The kids and I collected our baggage while Joel went and got the car, which got us out of the airport much quicker than we would have otherwise. Rebecca fell asleep as soon as her head touched her car seat, and barely woke up when I changed her into her pajamas at home.

After a rough flight and a long day yesterday, the kids and I slept until 8 this morning. We are all now much recovered, and glad to be home!