My Baby's First Solo Flight

We did it.  We put our little man on a big bad airplane all my himself.  We talked about it for months and he had no reservations about the adventure.  Naturally, the airport was at capacity for how many human beings it could hold, so we were running to the gate.  Not what I pictured.  What I envisioned was sitting down at the gate with a fresh bagel and juice, going through the carefully chosen contents of his big boy backpack, talking about the flight and what to do if he felt like he was going to ralph....he would be prepared. Not so much.  We walked up, Tim handed him his old phone, stocked with 3 Angry Birds games, he jumped with joy, squealed, hugged me quickly and ran down the ramp with the ticket check man, talking about his anticipation about drinking a Sprite during the flight. The end.

I did NOT have closure as I sat there staring at the plane, not allowed to leave until it was in the air.  My hands were flat against the glass as I sent telepathic messages to my son about all the things in his backpack that awaited him.  Really fun things.  Things I knew he would not even glance at given the phone he was just gifted with.  I begged the sarcastic gate man to allow me the opportunity to walk onto the plane and check to make sure my young son was not sobbing.  He laughed at me and continued to tell me "not a chance lady." Finally he agreed to do the checking himself and came back reporting that Dude had his feet up with a beer, talking it up with the stewardesses.

The plane indeed took off, landed and Dude was none the wiser.  He defeated some really exciting levels of Angry Birds, ate his sandwich, got annoyed by the "mean boy" sitting next to him, and that was that.  His first solo flight.  My parents met him at the gate and were greeted with a charming, toothless smile and huge hugs.  He's ready to do it again next year, minus the mean boy.