Every day for the last three years Andrew, or on the rare occasion Alex, has wandered from their bed into our bed sometime during the night. Occasionally Jen and I take bets on what hour in the morning Andrew will make his journey over.

This morning Jen and I woke up at 7:30 and to our absolute amazement there was no one in bed with us and from Alex’s room we heard them both playing together nicely. I tell you, it doesn’t get any better than that on a holiday morning.

Most people have already heard this story, some more then once, but I thought I would still post it for posterity. We just got back from our Washington trip and friends would inevitability ask us how the trip when and about the only thing that could accurately describe what we went through is adventure. The Griswold’s have nothing on us.

Two days before we left on the trip we took Andrew to the doctor for what seems like the 10th time this year for a cough. They checked him out and gave us the same diagnosis that we always get, allergies. The very next day he had to come back for his three year check up (no, they wouldn’t let us just double up the day before) and while they were listening tho his chest the doctor said, “He has pneumonia.” Jen had to take him up to the hospital for a chest x-ray and we got a prescription for a steroid and something from the -cillin family and were told it was fine to travel. Andrew didn’t seem to be bothered by it so off we went.

On the flight from Dallas to Washington I was sitting in an isle seat, Alex was sitting in the isle seat across from me, Jen was beside him in the middle, and Andrew had the window seat on the other side of Jen. About an hour into the flight the man sitting in the isle seat in front of Alex starting tapping the arm of the woman who was seated in front of me. “Mary!, Mary!, Hey Mary, can you hear me? Wake up Mary!” There was no response from the woman. Jen and I looked at each other and we both thought, oh my god, she’s dead. Jen switched places with Alex just in case and they paged the flight attendants for assistance. After a minute or so they were able to get some response from the woman but from where I was sitting it appeared that she kept going in and out of consciousness. The flight attendants paged to see if there was a doctor on board and it turned out there were two of them. (It happened that the American College of Physicians was holding an internist convention in D.C. that weekend which probably explains why there were two doctors on our flight.)

He started to check her out and decided that he wanted to lay her down and they picked Jen, Alex, and Andrew’s seats as the place to do this. When traveling with kids you have need to carry boat loads of stuff around to keep them occupied so we had to schlep it all the way to the back of the plane. For the kids it was a big adventure and it really wasn’t that big a deal. I came back to my seat and the helped the doctor move the woman across the isle to the new seats since she was still pretty much out of it and got her feet elevated on the seat rest. At that point he wanted to get her on oxygen and so I ended up helping hold the bottle. Turns out that emergency medical kits they have on planes are pretty worthless so fair warning to everyone, don’t get sick on the airplane. The doctor was unable to get a blood pressure reading because both the cuff and stethoscope were so bad and the first oxygen bottle they gave had a broken hose and leaked oxygen all over the place except into the mouth cover. Luckily they had a second bottle which worked.

After being on the oxygen for a while and laying down the woman was doing much better but since the doctor couldn’t get any vitals he thought it best that she get checked out by paramedics when we landed. When the plane pulled up to the gate we were greeted by what seemed to be the entire Dulles airport fire department, ambulance, pumper trucks, and some other rescue truck and no one was allowed to deplane until the paramedics had checked her out and given the ok. The good news is that she was ok and they released her to continue traveling.

Now that we had arrived in Washington it was time to get to the hotel. Never having traveled to D.C. Jen went down to our AAA office to work with the travel agent to book the hotel. She told them what we wanted, traveling with kids, want to visit the Smithsonian Museums, we are not renting a car so things need to be close, etc. The agent assured us that this was a fantastic hotel, just what we needed, and whenever they went to D.C. this is where they stayed. I looked at the map the night before the trip and it appeared to me that the hotel was a little bit on the outskirts city but again, not being familiar with the area, I figured lets just wait and see. We took the shuttle bus from Dulles airport to the hotel and it turns out we are at the “Holiday Inn at Dulles Airport” which literally means a couple of miles from the airport in the middle of sodding nowhere. When we checked in I asked, how do you get to downtown from here? “Hop back on the shuttle bus to the airport, it runs every 30 minutes, then catch the bus from the airport to the metro station, and then take the metro into town.” “And how long might all this take?” “About an hour. ” An hour!!!! Holy Cow, we’ve got kids, loads of kid stuff, we can’t be taking an hour to get into town, and then an hour to get back to the hotel at night, Ahhhhhh!!! What was the travel agent thinking?

Before we went on the trip Jen had ordered a D.C. tourist guide book on line and that night I went through the hotels listed as being downtown or close to a Metro station to find us a closer place. On about the 9th hotel I struck gold with Embassy Suites at the convention center which had just had a couple of cancellations and it worked out perfectly.

The next morning we packed up all our stuff, checked out of the Holiday Inn, took the shuttle back to the airport, and got in line with a bunch of other folks for the bus. Posted at the bus stop is a sign that read, “$3.10 per person, exact change required.” This is day one of the vacation, all the money I have just came out of the ATM which doesn’t give small bills so I run off into the airport to find a place to get change. Of course there is only one place at the opposite end of the airport from where I am and they won’t give change unless I buy something. $1.45 for a pack of gum, collect my change, and I’m off running back to the bus stop.

Of course while I’m running through the airport the bus arrives and everyone is starting to get on and Jen is wondering what is taking me so long. At this critical moment Alex throws up right there on the bus stop sidewalk. I get back in time so we are the last people in line and we load up all our stuff on the already overflowing bus. Alex sits in an isle seat, Jen is across the isle from him and has to put Andrew in her lap and I fight my way to the back of the bus where the luggage is piled knee deep and about four seats are completely occupied with bags. The bus was never designed to carry people traveling with loads of bags from the airport, it’s just a regular commuter bus, what the heck is the city thinking? It could have been worse and quickly got much worse. Already overloaded we pulled into a station part way to town to pick up a crew of daily commuters who were headed into the city for work. There were about 30 people at the stop and I figured we don’t have room for 3 of them but apparently we were on some kind of magic clown bus and all 30 folks squeezed on. It was now waist deep luggage at the back and Jen couldn’t even see Alex in the isle across from her it was so packed.

About 10 minutes after picking up this group of people Jen hear Alex say, “Mom, I don’t feel good.” “Take off your jacket, you’re probably too warm.” Alex then erupted like a volcano and started throwing up into his jacket, in his lap, right there in the middle of the commuter bus. You have never seen so many people all jump out of the way so quickly as they did when that happened. Magically Jen had a clear path to Alex with no obstructions. The woman sitting behind Jen had a plastic bag which we gave to Alex which he used to throw up in for the remainder of the trip into town.

When we got off the bus ride we said screw the Metro and took a cab to the hotel. Of course it’s about 10:30 in the morning and we can’t check in yet because they don’
t have the room ready so we leave our bags at the hotel and head out to tour the museums. One with pneumonia, one throwing up and no place to stay, fantastic. Might as well tour the sites since we’ve already come this far.

Alex pretty much went downhill during the course of the day and spent most of the time just sitting in the stroller. We toured the Smithsonian Natural History Museum where the dinosaur bones didn’t excite him and then we went to the National Air and Space Museum where we have a picture of him sitting in the stroller, covered in Jen’s sweatshirt, in front of Yuri Gagarin’s space suit which also got no reaction. To top things off Andrew refused to walk and refused to let anyone but Jen carry him around which wore her out.

Things started looking brighter the next day and Alex was much more chipper so we ended up going back to the Air and Space Museum to do it all over again so Alex could enjoy it and remember what he had seen. That night we were booked on the Amtrak train to Charlottesville Virgina to attend Kelly’s graduation at UVA and I have to admit the train ride was pretty uneventful. In fact Saturday turned out to be a pretty good day for everyone.

However, Saturday night I’m laying in bed with Andrew and he has this horrible sounding cough. Just one cough but it sounded funny and upset him enough that he started crying. Thinking I’m doing the good fatherly duty I comfort him, get him calmed down, lay him back down to sleep, when he coughs again which is followed up by what can only be described as a geyser of vomit. Since he was laying down it ended up is in his nose, his eyes, all over his hair, the pillow and bed sheets are covered, and understandably he is very upset. So at 2:00 in the morning we put him in the shower, stripped the bed clean and had to order an entirely new set of linens.

At this point Jen and I give some serious consideration to ending the trip right there and catching an early flight home. When I called the airline in the morning the earliest flight we could get on would be the one we are already booked on the next day or we could drive the couple hours there and hang out and try and fly standby. I figured it was probably better to stick it out then end up being stranded at the airport if we didn’t get a flight. (I guess we could have always gone back to the Holiday Inn.)

Sunday was Kelly’s graduation which Alex and I attended while Jen stayed back at the hotel with Andrew. We all made it through the day ok but at 3:00 o’clock Monday morning I woke up with the stomach flu. We had to be at the train station to catch the 7:15 Amtrak back to D.C. and let’s just say thank god Walmart opened at 6:00 so I could stop in for some Imodium. While we were sitting on the train Jen looked over at me and said “10 hours and this will all be over.” After arriving in D.C. there was absolutely no way I was going to take the bus back out to the airport so for the bargain basement price of $75 we took a cab.

We arrived at the airport at about 10:30 in the morning and our flight wasn’t until 5:30 that night so we had lots of time to kill. Out at the airport they have another Air and Space Museum which we took the shuttle bus to and passed out time. Alex absolutely loved it since they had the space shuttle Enterprise and all kinds of other great space stuff but I’m pretty sure if Jen sees any more air and space anything someone is going to get it.

We’ve made it home, we’re all on the mend, but I’m not sure I can think about another vacation for a while.

Once I have some time I’ll sift through the pictures we took and put them up on the website.