What A Difference 5 Minutes Makes...Part 2

Okay, so where was I?

We missed it...Oh Yes..We missed it by 5 minutes!!!

So...we were running through the airport with a total of 3 pieces of regular luggage, 4 carry-on items, a stroller, a car seat/base, 2 coats and a very cute baby...

We got to the gate right as they closed the door. I said, "There's no hope for us, is there?" And I kind of got a chuckle from the attendants. Luckily for us, there was a nice, no...a VERY nice gal there named Margot. She had us go to the counter and told us our options...

Everything was overbooked all day long. The only thing we had a hope to get on was a 3:30pm flight that would get us into Atlanta then Philly by 11pm (we could have driven to Philly and back in that amount of time). She booked us on that, and then I asked if there were any other earlier flights. Yes, there was a 11:56am, but it was WAY overbooked (why do they overbook flights anyway?). So we took the 3:30 flight and asked her to put us on the standby list for the 11:56 flight just in case there were other idiotic travlers like we had proved to be this morning.

A few typestrokes and our silent prayers later and Margot was handing me two CONFIRMED boarding passes for the 11:56 flight! She said that she has a 7 month old and they took her on the plane just last month and knows how hard it can be to travel with an infant, so she bumped others on the flight so we could get there quicker. I didn't know her but I wanted to kiss her. She told Brandon that he could take our 3 check in bags back to the front and check them.

So he did.

And I stayed at the gate, and decided to chat with Margot for a minute before she left and I broke out the oh-so-wonderful Hooter Hider (my beloved nursing cover) and get some breakfast in my child (who, at this point, was still an angel and wasn't even crying about the fact that she had been up since 4 and hadn't eaten anything yet). Just as I was settling into the corner chair in Gate A5, quieting my soul down enough to actually enjoy the nursing session, I get a phone call.

It's Brandon's special ringtone. It makes me smile every time.

He says that the lady at the front (the same one who wouldn't let us check our bags before) is telling him that he can't check his bags in until 3 hours before his flight. It's 6:15am now, and he can't check them in until 8:56am. Can I please get Margot on the phone to work this out? (We knew we had an ally in good ole' Margot...I should send a compliment card or something to AirTran singing her praises).

No, babe...sorry. I'm nursing Ella in my little hideaway and Margot's nowhere in sight right now.

So my poor husband had to get back in the security line (only this time he didn't get to cut anyone), and take all of our luggage which was meant to be checked back through the security checkpoint...what little hadn't already been discovered and "properly disposed of" (aka, put in the pocket of the worker probably--who wouldn't want my brand new jar of 100% natural peanut butter from Whole Foods or the new hair serum that leaves hair feeling stronger and shinier?)--was promptly discovered and taken away from us in this go-around. I think we probably lost about $40 worth of good stuff in that security line.

My dejected husband looked like a truck hit him when, an hour later, he rounded the corner and met us in A5 with all of our stuff. Then I had the task of telling him we'd acutally need to move to A7 and set up camp...the gate changed. All the while, Ella is playing on a blanket with a new toy I had packed for the big airplane adventure.

We did have a silver lining to this dark cloud in that as I was strolling Ella down the concourse trying to get her to fall asleep, I spotted Bear Reinhart, a former Paladin, teammate of Brandon's, and the lead singer for the band Need To Breathe. He and his band were at Furman before making it big. They just signed with Atlantic Records, have the #1 song on the P.S. I Love You soundtrack ("More Time"), and are really on the verge of blowing up...We are very excited for them. Surprisingly, Bear recognized me, and we talked as I walked him over to Brandon where we all got to visit with each other while we waited.

And, heck...since we really do think that Bear and his band are going to be super famous one day, we asked him to take a picture with us so we could show Ella one day that she met him...

(Remember, it was only 7am when this pic was taken)

So...FINALLY, the flight begins to board. We had everything together and got on. Margot had even found a black garbage bag for us to protect our car seat and base at gate check. Ella promptly fell asleep, Thank You, GOD! She slept the whole 48 minutes to ATL.

We got off the plane, checked the boards and found out that it was SNOWING in Atlanta, and our flight was delayed at least 2 hours. So we waited...

This is a nice family whom we met and befriended. Their daughter was so fun and high-spirited. If Ella is anything like her when she's three, though, we're in for it. She was HIGH-Energy. Thankfully, the mom bought me a coffee to help me keep up with her.

I closed my eyes for about 20 minutes thinking that when I'd open them, the gate would definitely be full of people ready to board. But when I did, amidst the blaring loop of news stories in the background, there were no more people than before...that's funny...shouldn't we be leaving in 20 minutes?

It's a good thing I think like this, y'all. My husband was on the phone, blissfully ignorant to the fact that our gate had changed and we were about to miss our flight...AGAIN.

But we didn't. And in my next post, I'll show what made all of this craziness worth it.