ChiKat

We survived the three-hour trip to Miami AND the five and a half hour flight to La Paz. Oddly, my biggest challenge on the flight was my son sleeping soundly.

On the flight to Miami, my son was VERY awake. Not screaming or fussing. Just wide awake and happy. He was delighted with his airplane experience and occasionally made an EAR PIERCING shriek of joy that rattled the entire aircraft.

He slept the entire flight from Miami to La Paz. That portion was a red eye, so I was exhausted and needed to sleep also. However, we kept changing altitude or cabin pressure or something. Whatever was happening meant that the pressure kept changing and my ears kept popping. To prevent my son from having a problem with his ears, all I needed to do was keep his binky in (with a binky, babies keep swallowing, so they continually relieve the pressure in their ears). My son chose that moment to decide, for the first time in his entire life, that he didn't want to sleep with a binky and he kept spitting it out.

I would slowly drift off to sleep, only to hear a quiet "plink, plick" as the binky was spit out of his mouth and rolled down the plane. I'd dive under the seats, fish out the binky, wash it off with a diaper wipe, and then try to force it back into my son's mouth. My son, without waking up at all, would clench his jaw and refuse to accept the binky.

I contemplated just letting him sleep, but my ears hurt enough as it was – I knew it would be disaster if I let my son's ears get all clogged with pressure and not be able to fix the problem. So I'd pry open his mouth, shove the binky back in and he'd finally accept it.

Five minutes later, I would hear, "plink, plink, plink" as the binky fell out again.

Repeat 500 times. I am exhausted. But we have arrived and my brother was waiting for us at the airport with flowers for a greeting. It is delightful to see him. If I could just sleep for about 60 hours, I will be in mint condition!