Ohio Bound

After almost six months, I've realized that nothing will ever be the same again. This notion was especially true during our trip from Long Beach to the Los Angeles Airport to Columbus, Ohio ... Sierra's first airplane trip.

Instead of taking a couple hours, packing took the better part of a day. I filled one giant suitcase for our five-week stay in Ohio, Chrissy filled another bag and a smaller carry-on. Sierra also had a giant suitcase to her name. It was filled with clothes, diaper cloths, absorbing pads, stuffed animals, and blankets. We had her car seat. We had her stroller, and diaper bag, and bottles, and pump. I've never had to pack a pump before.

Originally, we were going to drive ourselves to the airport and park in a long-term lot. However, Chrissy decided it would be cheaper and less stressful to get a shuttle to the airport. This particular shuttle picks up several passengers and takes them to LAX for a relatively small fee. At about 7:30 p.m., the big blue van from LAX crept over the hill and stopped at our house to pick us up. While I was helping the driver load our enormous collection of luggage, Chrissy buckled Sierra and the car seat into the first of three back-seat rows. Sitting quietly in the row behind us was a middle-aged nervous-looking Korean man with a small bag securely stowed on his lap. After getting into the van myself, the Korean man leaned forward.

"You know we have to go to Compton?" he said nervously. Compton isn't exactly the nicest of places in the Los Angeles area, known for its gang activity and high levels of crime. This man obviously knew that.

The driver smiled and told us the man behind us was a little scared of going to Compton. Chrissy and I started talking to the man about his upcoming trip. He was headed to Korea for his nephew's wedding. His nephew's parents had both passed away and the nervous man in the middle of the van was going to serve in their place.

"It's quite an honor," the man said. "But expensive," he added smiling.

As we pulled off of the road in Lakewood to pick up our next guest, the Korean man thought it was his duty to tell the woman what our next stop would be.

"You know we have to make a stop in Compton?" he said to the woman, now sitting in the front passenger seat.

"We have to go to Compton?" the woman asked somewhat worriedly.

The driver laughed, as did Chrissy and I as the Korean man gave us a "see-I'm-not-paranoid" look from the seat behind us. It was at this point where the man realized that the only available seat for the Compton resident was in the last row.

"Great, I don't know who's going to be sitting right behind me," he said. We couldn't help but laugh and tell him it would be all right.

Once we turned onto Compton Boulevard, you could feel the tension rising behind us. I think, by now, we were all curious as to who would be walking onto our van. The driver pulled up to a curb and waited. The Korean man tried not to make eye contact with anyone outside of the van, especially the shirtless white guy walking around in the yard with a cigarette -- in need of an ash -- dangling from his mustache-covered lips. Just then, two women carried their bags from a small house and walked toward our van.

"Where are you headed," Chrissy asked as they piled into the back seat.

"Aruba," one of them said smiling.

I don't know if the Korean man was slightly embarrassed for his paranoia, but he remained quiet the rest of the trip to the airport.

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I've always been a bit high-strung at airports. Something about the always extremely long lines, needing to keep track of all luggage, kiosks that sometimes don't work, having my ID out, my boarding pass out, getting into another long line, removing my belt, my shoes, items from my pockets, taking out my laptop, holding my breath as I go through a metal detector, redressing and repacking, then rushing to the gate only to wait an hour before they start boarding, gets to me.

Now, we had to add the baby factor to this plan. I had promised Chrissy the night prior that I would try with all that I had in me to stay cool and not get frustrated. I knew it would be difficult to keep that promise. But I tried.

Everything went smoothly when we arrived at the airport. Our driver pulled up to the curb, got out and ran toward a luggage cart up in baggage claim and sprinted back to us so that we wouldn't have to pay the $3 fee to get our own. That was impressive. He loaded our bags onto the cart and wished us a happy flight. We were off to a good start.

The initial lines went relatively quickly. We had no problems getting our boarding passes from the kiosk and, surprisingly, our luggage all met the 50 pound weight limit (although one weighed in at 52 pounds). Once our checked baggage was handed off, I felt a lot better. Now we just had to worry about one carry-on bag, the diaper bag, and the stroller and baby Sierra.

We were about to get in a long line to get to the security level of LAX when Chrissy wandered over to where she saw an elevator.

"Chris," I called. "Where are you going. We need to be in this line." I looked down at Sierra and she smiled. My blood pressure began to go back down.

"I think we can take this elevator," Chrissy said.

Every time I had visited LAX, I've gone through the same routines. I knew this was the right line to be in because I had been in this line many times before. I didn't want to stray from this routine.

"Let's just stay in the line," I pleaded with Chrissy. "I can hold up the stroller on the escalator." I realized how ridiculous I was beginning to sound. The thought of me trying to carry the stroller and the carry-on up a moving flight of stairs didn't exactly sound sane. I gave in and decided to go to the elevator with Chrissy.

Sure enough, this was the best way to go. We bypassed the long line and got to go directly through to the security station. With my shoes off and laptop in the bin along with all of my other items, we approached the metal detector and the seemingly teen-aged security guard. As Chrissy tried to roll the stroller through, he held up his arms.

"You're going to have to carry the baby through," he said.

Chrissy did that and left me with the stroller.

"You have to take off the car seat," he said. And I did.

"Put it through upside down," he added. And I did.

I collapsed the stroller and got ready to put it through.

"You have to put it in wheels up, sir," he said. Taking a deep breath, I did as he asked. I tried not to look behind me at the line starting to grow, both in length and in frustration.

Once we got the stroller through, Chrissy put it back together and got Sierra tucked nicely back in her chair. While she was doing this, I could see a concerned look on the person looking through the X-ray machine. He called her supervisor over to look. It was our carry-on bag. His supervisor looked through, cocked her head and lifted her eye brow while looking over at me.

"This your bag?" she asked loudly.

"Um, yeah, that's ours," I said.

"You're gonna have to come over here, please."

At this moment, Chrissy intervened.

"It's a breast pump," she said quietly while pointing to our daughter.

"It's a what?" the security guard asked loudly.

"It's a breast pump ... for milk ... for the baby," I said apparently unconvincingly.

The woman opened the bag and found the pump. She opened the pump, pulled out long plastic tubing, spun the dials and looked at the buttons. I was wiping sweat from my forehead. Why was I nervous? I knew it wasn't a bomb. It sure looked like one, though. I could see the headlines now.

MAN ARRESTED AT LAX WITH SUSPICIOUS LUGGAGE

MAN APPARENTLY HAD A BREAST PUMP

BREAST PUMP LINKED TO AL QUEDA OPERATIVES

After the thorough examination of the pump, we were freed to go to our gate. We stopped for some nourishment before heading to the gate.

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The one good thing about having a baby at the airport is that we get to board first. It was great. We walked down the walkway, I left the stroller with a tag for it to be stowed below. I didn't have to fight anyone for the overhead bins. We were seated, the three of us, ready to go. After about five minutes, there was an announcement on the loudspeaker of the plane.

"Would the passenger that left the stroller come up and collapse it for checking?"

I looked at Chrissy and then at the long line of passengers boarding the plane.

"I'll get it," I said.

Then I started my walk of shame against traffic, certainly annoying the masses fighting their way onto the plane. I got to the stroller and took the car seat out and then collapsed the stroller. I waited there for someone to come take it away. Just then a woman dressed in a bright orange reflector jacket came in to get the stroller.

"This is our stroller and this is the car seat that goes with it," I said.

"We're not supposed to do car seats," she said. "You'll have to take it on the plane with you."

I was not going to do that. The bins were filling up and wasn't going to try and stuff that under the seats. There was absolutely no room for that.

"Miss, please, could you just take that down with the stroller? We don't have any room in there for this seat."

"We're not supposed to do that," she said.

Finally, she grabbed the car seat and turned toward the door.

"Fine," she said without looking at me.

"Thank you for all of your help," I said sarcastically as another passenger laughed as she boarded the plane.

Once back in my seat, I looked over at Chrissy and at Sierra who was wiggling all over the place.

"We may never see that car seat again," I said to Chrissy.

We were finally all buckled into our seats. The safety instructions were read and we were heading toward the runway. Chrissy was ready for takeoff, armed with a bottle ready to plunge into Sierra's mouth as soon as we were air born. We were told this would relieve the ear pressure.

We lifted into the smoggy Los Angeles air and coasted over the beautiful coastline at 11 p.m. California time. It was a stunning glimpse of the Santa Monica Pier and all of the dimly lit coastal cities gearing up for Friday evening. Just beautiful.

Sierra was just great. If anything, she was too excited. For the first half-hour of the flight, she was kicking and smiling, making loud happy sounds, and wanting to play. I tried again not to look at the passengers who had put eye-covers on in the hopes of sleeping during the entirety of this red-eye flight to Columbus. Oh well, I thought, they can deal with it.

Once we were just east of Big Bear Lake, Sierra fell asleep with a full tummy. She would not awaken until we would land in Ohio. I, on the other hand, couldn't fall asleep. I tried, but it is impossible to sleep in the amount of space I was given by Delta. For four hours, I tracked our flight on the small map and paid attention to the in-flight movie without sound. I managed to dose off for about 45 minutes at the end of the flight, certainly less than I would have liked.

At roughly 6:15 a.m. Ohio time, we landed in Columbus. We had made it. Somehow we had survived a van ride through Compton. We had survived a breast pump security scare. We had survived a stroller incident (we did get the car seat back, by the way). And we had survived a plane ride without waking up or annoying a packed plane of red-eye passengers. I would say I lived up to 80 percent of my promise to Chrissy.

Maybe I'll reach 100 percent on our trip back to California on September 2. I'm ready for anything, now.