The Flight to Iowa

On Thursday we headed to Iowa. I started my day off early, so I could pack for the kids and for myself. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 12:15 p.m., so we allowed the silly two hours prior to the departure time and hit the road with the kids. We were very excited, and timing was perfect. We'd eat a fast lunch and then the kids could take their naps on the flight. This was the plan in my head anyway. As Nathan went to park the car, the kids and I hauled all of our suitcases and car seats to the check-in counter where I was promptly told that they weren't checking in our flight since it was still 3 hours before the flight.
"Excuse me?" I said. "Our flight's at 12:15 and it's 10:30."
"No," the KIND lady replied, "The Des Moines flight leaves at 1:55. Come back and check in at 11:55, two hours prior to departure."
Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Seriously, you've got to be kidding me. Apparently we had booked our flight so far in advance that the scheduling changed and for some ODD reason, our updated itinerary was sent to Nathan's Mom's email address instead of his. AWESOME. So we had to hang around with our fully loaded cart of crap and our kids that were already about to burst just from the 30 minute car ride. We spent the time wisely, running around the airport, going up and down the escalators and having lunch once we were finally allowed to get past security. I remember actually making the comment to Nathan that it was nice to not be in a rush for once.
We did a little shopping at the gift store, and since the kids were at a breaking point, Nathan and I decided to let them splurge on a few new pals for the ride. The store had a bunch of character stuffed animals from a few of the shows that James frequently watches. There was Dora and her pals Boots and Swiper, Diego and his animal friends, Blue and her buddies (did you know Blue is a girl?), the Wonder Pets and a few of the Backyardigans, etc. I thought I'd throw a quiz at James and asked him if he knew who each character was. He amazed us with his knowledge. He knows so much, it shocked us. Nathan picked up a puppy that looked like Blue but was pink and had glasses. I said something like, "Oh, James, this must be a pink Blue, right?" and he replies, "That's Magenta!" Oh silly Mommy. Sure enough, the tag said Magenta. Nathan was pointing out Diego and his pals and made a remark something like, "Here is Diego and Panther..." and James says, "No, that's baby Leopard!" Smarty pants. We let the kids pick, well, James picked, Blue for himself, and Magenta for Kaitlyn. I must say, this was a very good buy.
So remember my plan from before, that the kids would sleep on the plane? Whoa, Nelly. By the time we had boarded the plane, it was 1:40... an hour plus after Kaitlyn's normal nap time. She was overtired, to put it lightly. We didn't even get to the part of taxiing before she had lost it. I tried my miraculous baby bounce that I've used on my own kids and on other kids, but she was so wound up even that didn't work. She was screaming, shaking and bright red. Nathan and I just marveled at how crazy she was being, our sweet little girl was MAD! Nathan finally restrained her enough to where she stopped fighting back, and I fanned her to cool her down. Alas, she slept, like a baby, for 50 minutes, on her Mommy. Ahhhh. Thank you God for watching over us.
James slept too, just like usual, and both kids were bright and cheery upon waking. We spent the rest of the flight watching DVD shows and playing with our new pals from the Sanford Airport, Blue and Magenta.