Little Jetsetter

Grandma Eunie holding her first great-grandchild.

Meeting the cousins.

Well, Charlotte (and I) survived her first cross-country trip! At 6-weeks-old, this girl has traveled further from home than some people do in a lifetime. We spent the past week in Seattle, which of course involves two very long flights. I absolutely dreaded the almost-6-hour flight with my 5-week-old (at that time) infant, but Charlotte did great, short of one unfortunate mishap with the poopiest diaper ever 40 minutes into the flight. Fortunately, I had brought a back-up outfit just in case this very thing occurred, so all turned out fine. Charlotte met my brother and his wife, followed by Grandpa Dale. All three were utterly smitten. My brother took to her as though he had been around babies all his life. (Dare I hope for a little niece or nephew soon?) On Sunday, we went to my parents’ church, presumably so my folks could parade their first grandchild around. Charlotte lasted 10 minutes into the service before releasing a big fat scream, so with my dad trailing me with the diaper bag, I high-tailed it to the “cry room”—a dimly lit, relatively sound-proof, glass-enclosed room with rocking chairs that looks out into the sanctuary and the service is piped in through speakers. As my dad and I settled into rocking chairs, he looked around, impressed. “This is nice,” he said, as though seeing it for the first time. “It’s like box seats for church.” “Why are you surprised?” I asked. “Didn’t you build this room?” (My dad built the new church sanctuary.) “Well, yes. But it turned out better than I realized.” He never fails to be impressed by his own handiwork. After church, my folks hosted a big family brunch. Some relatives from South Dakota were in town and were able to attend, and Charlotte also got to meet her Great-Grandma Eunie (who reiterated her desire for more great-grandchildren—twins would be preferable next time, we were told), her Great-Auntie Jane, and my cousins (what would they be called?). She slept through the majority of her debut, snuggled up in someone's arms the whole time. Throughout the rest of the week, Charlotte was introduced to the majority of the inhabitants of the West Coast. By Friday, after having gotten in touch with her Opp roots, it was high time she got to know her Hofmann side. She met her Uncle Jason and Auntie Erin and also her cousins, Kylie and Maggie. Kylie opened the door when we arrived, and she was a torrent of words. “Aunt Ashley! Aunt Ashley! Do you know what? We’re watching Charlotte’s Web. We’re watching it right now, we really are, because this is the day Charlotte is coming!” The girls (who were about 5 feet taller than when I last saw them in July) were fascinated by their baby cousin—at least up until they realized that at 6 weeks of age, little Miss Charlotte is sort of a blob who can’t really do much. But she could cry, and my child fussed and fussed throughout most of her visit, making a stellar first impression. Finally, after nursing AND a bottle, she was fed a 2-ounce chaser of formula as a last-ditch effort to calm her. Of course that mollified her. How she ate that much, I don’t have a clue. The flight back home was great. My mom raised hell (although she swears she was nice about it) with Alaska Airlines until someone would bestow upon her a pass to accompany me through security (they did it for Chris in DC without batting an eye). With a car seat, stroller, diaper bag, handbag, bottles with milk, and, oh yes, a baby, it takes an army to get through security. Charlotte handled the flight home like a champ, sleeping the whole time (well, there was one groggy diaper change in there), except for the descent. This was precisely what I hoped for because it allowed me to feed her a bottle as the plane descended, keeping her little baby ears from painfully popping. I also realized that travelers are more enamored than annoyed by a baby, at least on the whole. They oohed and ahhed over Charlotte like crazy. Oodles of fellow travelers offered to help me at every stage, which surprised me for some reason. People are actually quite nice! Or maybe it was a Seattle thing. The Alaska flight attendants on both flights were incredibly nice and accommodating, going out of their way to help us get settled and essentially making my life as easy as possible while traveling with Charlotte. And an infant, I realized, is probably the easiest age of kid to travel with. She sleeps most of the time, won’t throw a tantrum, and she can’t yet wriggle away from me! In short, we had a great week and I had so much fun getting to see so many people and, of course, show off my baby girl. And Chris’s reaction when he greeted us at the airport? “Good lord, woman! What have you been feeding my kid? She’s HUGE!”