Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Flying the Finndly skies

After closing out the last year so strong on the blog, I'm embarrassed by how slowly we've started this one. You guys must all be totally freaking out, wondering what the Ninja has been up to. Well, everyone except for St. Helena, who has apparently broken up with us. Harsh, St. Helena. Harsh.

The reason for the relative quiet on the blog front is due to our recent trip to South Carolina to visit Finn's Grandma Parker's family, including his Great-Grandma McCall. Being that this was Finn's second flight, we used the lessons learned from the first trip to enhance the experience.

In other words, we got the spaz a seat and a nice tasty bottle of childrens' Benadryl. Add in some soothing ocean sounds on the iPod and voila...


Of course, the Benadryl only lasted a couple of hours which left plenty of time for squirming and screaming. While Finn has developed quite a vocal range, we are blessed in that his crying is still relatively quiet and I would be surprised if anyone outside our immediate vicinity could hear him. At least, that's what I kept telling myself as I ordered another bloody mary.

Aside from the general stress of flying with a nine-month old, the trip was fantastic. We got to introduce Finn to a whole new set of relatives, including fellow bloggerkind Millie, as well as a whole new food menu - including Krispy Kremes, Hoppin' John and cornbread. Here Finn and Millie debate the relative merits of strained carrots vs. unsweetened cornbread. The big winner in this debate, of course, was their great-grandmother.


Finn also got to take a walk down memory lane on the local pipeline with his Grandpa Parker, just like his daddy did with his Grandpa McCall thirty-years ago - though I'm pretty sure the hills have gotten about 75% steeper in the last thirty-years. The family also took a (more level) stroll around beautiful downtown Greenville, home of Falls Park and birthplace of Shoeless Joe and Jesse Jackson, and the velvety voice of Peabo Bryson.


But as with absolutely everything these days, except for Finn's naps, it all went by too quickly. Of course, nothing went quicker than Uncle Scott's time on the mechanical bull. Not even Mommy's. But that's a story for YouTube to tell, not for a small child's blog.

So while Finn did not get to spend nearly enough time with his southern relatives, he did have a wonderful time and hopes to do it again very soon. Of course, next time Finn will remind Daddy to put the car keys back in the suitcase after using them to entertain him. And as a result, Daddy will not be required to dock the first $50 of Finn's allowance to make up for the additional airport parking fees incurred while awaiting the return of the keys.

See if you can pick the dumbest generation out of these four. I'll give you a hint: he's wearing a hat.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love the picture of Finn & Millie with Grandma! For future reference, the donut of the gods is spelled Krispy Kreme. You know we take liberties with spelling and grammar down South! I'm not sure what all of these entries about Finn's lack of sleep are all about. It seemed like he was only awake for an hour while we were at Grandma's. Must have been the jet lag!