Returns

Nothing reminds me that I'm a parent more than the smell of a hot sweaty kid in the back of an already hot, sticky car. Or dealing with self-important aides at school (lady, I'm not loitering, I'm signing my kid to bring snacks, back off already!). Or having to stock up on the 3 boxes of kleenex, baby wipes and hand soap that parents are asked to provide to the class. Yeah back to school!

Getting Kidzilla home from CA was quite the feat. I met up with him at IAH and bad weather promptly set it. There was no getting out of IAH to anywhere for us that night. Low seniority and bad weather forced us to call up some long lost relatives to reserve a couch. Since A was at home in ONT, he was able to scour the computer looking for alternate routes home for Kidzilla and I. Some helpful friends from JC also offered to lend a hand if we needed it.

We ended up going IAH-AUS and then changing airlines and continuing on to JAX. We arrived home saturday. His luggage arrived home sunday. When we first met up and checked his bag in, the flights looked fine. By the end of the afternoon, we were trying just get OUT to anywere. After waiting 3 hours in the baggage area to get his luggage back, we gave up. After my third foray into the office, they finally said they could take my anticipated flight info and forward the bag in the morning. Hmmm, woulda been nice if they had said that when we had arrived there and spared us 3 hours of waiting around with a hungry, tired kid! They even said they would be able to take care of the bag switch b/t airlines. I was skeptical, but just wanted to get the hell out already. So of course we arrived in JAX but our luggage did not. I went to our arrival airline, but they had no way to trace the bag for us w/o a claim ticket and sent me to our departure airline. The bag was traced back to AUS. They told me a)there was no info in the system about the final destination of the bag and b) they would re-route it back to JAX on their airline and it should arrive around 11pm that night. At 4pm the next day, our arrival airline calls saying they had the bags. Whatever, as long as they finally arrived...

A got awarded a great schedule for this month. At least one weekend day home a week, plus several 3 day blocks. It will be nice to see him for more than after work on tuesdays.

Just when I say things seem to be falling into a routine, something will pop up and through us for a spin. So I won't say it.