The first day....
It was early....
The sun had not yet come up.....
Still.....
no one argued with the alarm clock,
the boys scurried about.....
We all dressed quickly,
grabbed a muffin and some coffee in the lobby,
and loaded the airport shuttle.
The boy's excitement was already pretty high.....
smiling as they sat in the back of the shuttle....stuffing muffins in their mouths,
whispering to each other about not having to wear a seat belt.
Three of the five people in our family had never flown.
The children.
One of us has flown a hundred times....
Their father.
The last of us hates flying and rates it close to the top of her fears list....
Me......
I worked on burying my anxiety so the kids would relax.....
The five of us made our way through the airport jungle....
It was mostly quiet....early and a Tuesday.
Phinlynn bounced around in the pack on her daddy's back.....
her tired eyes darted about taking in the scene.
The boys followed closely behind gripping their backpacks filled up with books.....
They called, and we boarded.
The plane was full.
Of course it was.
Completely full.
Parklen took the window seat (first scrubbed down with a Clorox wipe)
in the middle was Paysen.
Devan on the other side.
Across the aisle, was my seat....
and then Phinlynn's.
and then.....the poor lady assigned to sit beside her.
I silently prayed as we prepared for take off.....(I seriously hate flying)
The boys watched out the window and smiled like crazy.
Once in the air, Devan and I passed Phinlynn back and forth.....the boys played and life was good.
Over the speaker we heard, "please prepare, we are beginning to make our decent..."
Phinlynn must have been taking night classes on pilot lingo in secret or something......as she took this announcement as a cue.....
She began to scream (I mean SCREAM)
I started to sweat.
I pulled out all the tricks.....the things you do for your baby so their ears don't hurt....she was not having it....any of it.
You know those mom moments where you get a vision of where things are going and find yourself working as hard as possible to prevent the inevitable...this was one of those
Phinlynn's screams escalated and soon she began to have a full out melt down....the worst kind.
The kind where they flail around and bang their heads on things.....
the kind where they scratch and hit....
the kind where, if you were at home you would just walk away......
That's what you would do at home.....
but what about if you were soaring high.....in an airplane.....
You sweat.....you pray....you panic and then.........
you laugh(awkwardly)....because there is literally nothing else to be done.
We tried to neutralize the situation....
we tried.
We passed the screamer back and forth....
we smiled at the other passengers as they glared our way.....
we tried giving her candy, snacks....bribes, hugs, kisses.......
By the end of the flight, I had bloody scratches covering my chest, neck, arms and face....
by the end of the flight, we were the least popular people on the plane, (especially for the cranky old lady in front of me)......
By the end of the flight, we were happy to get off of the plane.....
too bad it was just our first flight.....
We still had a 6 hour flight ahead!!!
We had no choice but to smile.....and step onto that next plane......
Fast forward 6 hours.....
our lives changed forever.
As we stepped out of the plane, we were kissed by sunlight(it stung a little on my open wounds).......
the warmth of the tropical air hugged us tightly....
We walked across the pavement and into the airport.....most of the airport was outside....a roof, but no walls..... A beautiful young Hawaiian woman met us......"Are you the Henderson's?"
She placed a lei over each of our heads.....I breathed in the freshness of the flowers.....finding nothing in my memory to compare them to.....
I watched as the boys beamed....smiles so big.......Devan too.....
There we were....
In paradise.
We spent the rest of the evening exploring a portion of the island.
The sights,
the sounds,
the smells,
they were like nothing we had experienced in our lives.....
As we drove down the roads we were mesmerized by so much....
the ocean was there....
in places, the earth was covered in hardened volcanic lava.....
a little further and the earth became green....palm trees.....beaches....
As we laid down that night to sleep, we shared our delights with each other....
We all quickly drifted off.....
It had begun....
The sun had not yet come up.....
Still.....
no one argued with the alarm clock,
the boys scurried about.....
We all dressed quickly,
grabbed a muffin and some coffee in the lobby,
and loaded the airport shuttle.
 |
| just a blurry capture on the shuttle.... |
The boy's excitement was already pretty high.....
smiling as they sat in the back of the shuttle....stuffing muffins in their mouths,
whispering to each other about not having to wear a seat belt.
Three of the five people in our family had never flown.
The children.
One of us has flown a hundred times....
Their father.
The last of us hates flying and rates it close to the top of her fears list....
Me......
I worked on burying my anxiety so the kids would relax.....
The five of us made our way through the airport jungle....
It was mostly quiet....early and a Tuesday.
her tired eyes darted about taking in the scene.
The boys followed closely behind gripping their backpacks filled up with books.....
They called, and we boarded.
The plane was full.
Of course it was.
Completely full.
Parklen took the window seat (first scrubbed down with a Clorox wipe)
in the middle was Paysen.
Devan on the other side.
and then Phinlynn's.
and then.....the poor lady assigned to sit beside her.
I silently prayed as we prepared for take off.....(I seriously hate flying)
The boys watched out the window and smiled like crazy.
Once in the air, Devan and I passed Phinlynn back and forth.....the boys played and life was good.
 |
| Before the meltdown.... |
Over the speaker we heard, "please prepare, we are beginning to make our decent..."
Phinlynn must have been taking night classes on pilot lingo in secret or something......as she took this announcement as a cue.....
She began to scream (I mean SCREAM)
I started to sweat.
I pulled out all the tricks.....the things you do for your baby so their ears don't hurt....she was not having it....any of it.
You know those mom moments where you get a vision of where things are going and find yourself working as hard as possible to prevent the inevitable...this was one of those
Phinlynn's screams escalated and soon she began to have a full out melt down....the worst kind.
The kind where they flail around and bang their heads on things.....
the kind where they scratch and hit....
the kind where, if you were at home you would just walk away......
That's what you would do at home.....
but what about if you were soaring high.....in an airplane.....
You sweat.....you pray....you panic and then.........
you laugh(awkwardly)....because there is literally nothing else to be done.
We tried to neutralize the situation....
we tried.
We passed the screamer back and forth....
we smiled at the other passengers as they glared our way.....
we tried giving her candy, snacks....bribes, hugs, kisses.......
By the end of the flight, I had bloody scratches covering my chest, neck, arms and face....
by the end of the flight, we were the least popular people on the plane, (especially for the cranky old lady in front of me)......
By the end of the flight, we were happy to get off of the plane.....
too bad it was just our first flight.....
We still had a 6 hour flight ahead!!!
We had no choice but to smile.....and step onto that next plane......
Fast forward 6 hours.....
our lives changed forever.
As we stepped out of the plane, we were kissed by sunlight(it stung a little on my open wounds).......
the warmth of the tropical air hugged us tightly....
We walked across the pavement and into the airport.....most of the airport was outside....a roof, but no walls..... A beautiful young Hawaiian woman met us......"Are you the Henderson's?"
I watched as the boys beamed....smiles so big.......Devan too.....
There we were....
In paradise.
We spent the rest of the evening exploring a portion of the island.
The sights,
the sounds,
the smells,
they were like nothing we had experienced in our lives.....
the ocean was there....
in places, the earth was covered in hardened volcanic lava.....
a little further and the earth became green....palm trees.....beaches....
As we laid down that night to sleep, we shared our delights with each other....
We all quickly drifted off.....
It had begun....
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