Mason Mania: A Challenge

I was feeling a bit restless and wanted to challenge myself so I decided that I would single-handedly take the baby to Phoenix for the weekend to visit my brother and his fiance and my grandparents. I bought him some new toys and took his favorite snacks on the plane. He was actually quite good on the flight to Phoenix and I was feeling pretty good about my decision to take him on a little vacation. He was a little darling during dinner at The Country Buffet, at which he ate as much as I did. He was super cute at Great Grandma and Grandpa's house. He was not so cute at 10:00 p.m. when he was refusing to go to sleep in my bed with me. For some reason I mistook him for a baby that would sleep on a mattress with me. Thank goodness Sarah's friend had a portable crib for him to sleep in.

We had a great time visiting the Hotel Valley Ho, where Kyle and Sarah will be married in September. All the beautiful people hang out at the pool there and more than a few bikini clad women found Mason adorable and played on the grass with him. He was loving the attention.

We came home on Sunday morning and Mason was low on sleep and a little cranky when we boarded the plane. We had been sitting down for exactly one minute when he started his high pitched, ear piercing screaming. He has just started this phenomenon and does it when he is not pleased about something. I told the guy next to us that I was very sorry and he said that he was expecting his first child in June and that he didn't mind a bit. Mason continued his antics off and on for the next hour. I was at my wits end and decided to take him to the lavatory. You should know that in over 100 flights, I have never seen an airplane bathroom. I have just never had the need or desire to be in one. Well, the only way I could keep Mason from screaming was to let him put his hands under the running water in the bathroom. We did that for about 5 minutes and then I decided to take him back to our seat. He had other ideas. As soon as I opened the lavatory door, he let out his blood curdling scream which made several rows turn around and caused the flight attendant to laugh hysterically. I asked him if we could hang out in the lavatory and he said that would be fine. So for the next 30 minutes I let Mason play in the sink. I would have stayed in there the rest of the flight had we not been told we had to return to our seat for the initial decent. We took our seat, much to Mason's dismay, and he resumed Screamfest 2008. I was letting him play with anything (my cell phone) and eat anything (pretzels, a cookie some random passenger gave him) just to get him stop screaming. While he was eating he started making really dramatic head gestures up and down. They got slower and slower until finally his little head was resting on his chest. I honestly thought something was wrong with him, so I turned him around to look at him. Nothing wrong, just sleeping exactly 10 minutes before we landed. Instead of being annoyed I thanked my lucky stars that the battle was finally over. When we landed the man sitting next to us said "You did a really great job with your son". My eyes filled up with tears because it was the most frustrated I have ever been as a mother and I just felt so bad. I said thank you and he said "It must have been very frustrating for you but you handled him with such love even as he was screaming his head off". I just said thank you again and wanted to hug this man.

So there you have it, I will not be traveling alone with my son again for a very long time. As soon as we got home we both fell asleep for three and a half hours. Jake said "Wow, I really envisioned our reunion to be more exciting than this".

Since I haven't blogged in forever, here's a whole lot of pictures...

Kyle and Sarah at the exact spot where they will exchange vows in September