The longest day of my life

The saga began on Wednesday, May 25, 2011.  Darren took the morning off of work to take me and the kids to the airport; the kids and I were on our way to see my cousin, Allison, graduate from high school on Thursday night.  We chose my specific flight because it would allow me and the kids to only have one flight and fly directly from Detroit to Little Rock.  My mom and sister were going to meet us at the airport and then we would make the 2 1/2 hour trip home –a little more car time for less plane and airport time.

Darren and I managed to get all of the bags checked and get through security with the kids with only minutes to spare.  We quickly made the trek to the other side of the airport and made it to our gate just in time for our noon time flight.  As we arrived at the gate, the attendant made an announcement – we were delayed for an hour. OK, we can deal with this.  I went and got the kids some snacks to munch on – I didn’t want to use up all of the snacks I had packed for the plane.  We made due for a little while and as we thought they were getting ready to start boarding, they made the announcement that the flight had been cancelled.  Now what?  We made our way to the gate that hosts the information stations for changing flights.  I scanned my tickets and it spit out two tickets that said we would be flying out from Detroit in about 7 hours to go to Atlanta, where we would be laid over for a few more hours, and then we would get into Little Rock after 11pm that night!  No way!  I got on the phone with the agent and said “I have a 3 year old and a 1 year old, I can’t spend 10 hours in the airport today.  The lady on the phone worked for 45 minutes trying to give me other options while Darren made hot-laps around the terminal with the kids in the stroller.  I said that if I was going to have to have a layover, I might as well go straight to Fort Smith and avoid the 2 plus hour car ride.  We finally settled on a flight that would fly out the next day around 7:30am, we would have a one hour layover in Memphis and then on to Fort Smith by 11am or so in the morning, still allowing us enough time to change our clothes and get cleaned up to meet the family for dinner before graduation.  Sounded good, anyway…

Darren checked on my bags later that night and found out they were still destined to go to Little Rock, even though we were now destined for Fort Smith.  Finally, he was able to get on the phone with someone that was able to reroute our bags – hopefully they would be there when we landed – all of our clothes and one of the car seats.

Next morning, we were up at 4:30am in the morning.  We woke up the kids and got them dressed and loaded and we were headed back to the airport again.  We printed out the new boarding passes and as Darren was checking the other car seat, I noticed that we had our 7:30am tickets and the second set was for a 2pm flight on stand-by.  What happened to my 9:30am connecting flight?  Darren went back downstairs and apparently almost got himself arrested by yelling at the check-in agents.  They said that the 9:30am flight had been cancelled and that we should go on to Memphis and work with them to get on the next flight to Fort Smith.  Back through security (after Darren yelled at them they at least gave him his gate pass, which initially they were refusing to do – even though they had just done it the day before), and on to our gate, and this time we actually boarded the plane.

The kids were amazing on the plane.  Brosnan slept for a little bit and they watched movies. 

Couldn’t have asked for anything more…and then began our day in Memphis.  I checked at the counter and they said I would need to wait until the 2pm flight to see if I could get seats, since our tickets said standby.  We did the best we could to stay busy and happy while walking the entire airport…

   …however, just like Murphy’s law says – if it can go wrong, it will go wrong.  Memphis airport does not sell pacifiers, and I’m pretty sure we lost ours in Detroit.  They also barely sell diapers.  Of course Brosnan would poop, and not just a little – up his back and on his clothes.  I only had a few diapers and no extra clothes – we were only supposed to be in Memphis for 30-45 minutes!!  Uuugggh…all day.  No seats on the 2pm flight – “you need to wait for the next flight at 5pm”.  More food vouchers and countless laps around the airport.    Finally, they fell asleep for a few minutes.

“No seats on the 5pm flight”.  I started crying at the ticket counter.  I just couldn’t help it.  The kids were screaming.  Brosnan pooped again.  We were tired and hungry and miserable.  A lovely couple tried to give us their seats on the plane, but the attendant refused to give them to us because she said other people were ahead of us on stand-by.  The couple even offered to rent a car and drive us the 5 hours to Fort Smith, but I couldn’t let them do that.  I wish I knew there names – they were absolutely wonderful.  So, back to walking around. 

Finally, we were allowed to go on the 7pm flight.  The kids were tired, but did the best they could on the flight.  We finally made it to Fort Smith, and at least they got the luggage right and we had both car seats and all of our bags.  We hurried to the car and loaded everyone up.  We made it to my cousin’s school and as we were walking towards the stadium, we heard them announcing kids with last names that started with “U”.  Her last name starts with a “T”.  We had just missed it.  From 4:30am to 9:30pm, from home to graduation, and we made it, but we had missed the big moment.  I was so bummed, but was happy to at least be able to see Allison that night.  Congrats, girl!