We arrived in St Louis Saturday.
We did not get Benjamin his own seat this trip, because for one thing, he is not yet 2 and not required to have his own seat, but also because we were supposed to be flying business class and would have had plenty of room for all 3 of us with 2 seats.
Unfortunately, a lot of people with open-ended business class tickets showed up at the very last minute so we got bumped back to coach, also known as the cattle car. That meant that Benjamin not having his own seat was not a good thing at all, since an adult can barely fit in an airplane seat by him/herself these days, much less with an almost 2-year-old on his/her lap.
Benjamin does not sleep on airplanes. (Can you blame him?) We left the house at 9:45 am and arrived in Chicago at 3:30 pm local time, 10:30 pm French time. He had not slept the entire time. He did, however, scream for almost the entire time. He was the child you don't want to be next to on the plane. We didn't even want to be next to him, so I know no one else did!
Some people suggested Benadryl to us for the flight... we couldn't find the same product in France, but Frederic's sister (a pharmacist) suggested a cough syrup with the same effect. I was a little uncomfortable with the idea of drugging Benjamin for the trip, but as luck (or ill luck) would have it, he woke up coughing Saturday morning. So we dropped in at the pharmacy before we left and picked up the cough syrup.
But you know how the labels say that the medicine may cause drowsiness
or excitability? Guess which one Benjamin got. Yup. NOT a great idea for us.
We finally made it to Chicago, though, and my mom picked us up there and drove us back to St Louis. Benjamin finally slept in the car, and now, almost a week later, we are all pretty much back on local time - other than the fact that we go to bed around 8 pm and wake up around 5-6 am.
We are going to Columbia, MO today, and Monday leave for our Thanksgiving trip including Tulsa, Madill, Austin, Searcy and possibly Memphis.
