Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Our trip

Well, this is your longer post. We left our house at about 9 am Sunday for the day long odyssey that was getting to Texas. We went up to BWI with my mom so she could shuttle our car, since we had no idea which airport to which we would return. We pulled into the airport drop off and Jimmy threw up. The trip nearly ended there (since we were flying standby on passes, we had no investment in tickets or anything), but we pressed on. We were listed for a 1:30 flight, but waiting through 3 more to finally get on a 7pm flight. Since Jimmy was sick, he slept all afternoon. Jacob was a bear to deal with - we took turns (with Jim taking more than I) running him up and down the concourse, looking at planes.

We got on the plane and the world ended. Jimmy had a panic attack. We spent the minutes on the ground trying to figure out who best could hold him in his seat and who would get Jacob, since we had two seats three rows apart. I had to inform the entire flight crew that he was autistic, as well as the surrounding passengers, so there would be some level of understanding or empathy. The kindness of the people on our plane was pretty amazing, especially the flight crew. Once we pushed back, however, Jimmy was fascinated. He was pretty good the first half of the flight. Then Jimmy learned how to take off his seatbelt. Jim, who sat next to him, basically had to sit on him for the rest of the trip. But we made it.

Since Jimmy had slept all afternoon, we enlisted our niece Christine to come back to my dad's house to stay up with Jimmy, so we could get some sleep. Jimmy and Jacob were out within the first hour.

That takes us to Christmas Day, which we will be the next post as Jacob demands my attention.

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