Home Safe, Birthday Boy.

Long day. Got up this morning and packed our big pile-o-stuff to say goodbye to our good friends and hosts, Brian and Nancy. Dropped Mike off at the Convention Center for the last few panels , while I took the kids to the Austin Children’s Museum. We played there for about an hour and a half, then met Nancy for lunch and a final goodbye.

As said lunch was breaking up, I discovered poop. Lots of it. Leaking out the top of Nate’s pants. So I proceeded to carry him, poop facing out for the world to see, holding up his nice shirt so it wouldn’t get covered in poop, for two blocks back to the rental car. Where I then dug out a change of pants for Nate and used umpteen wipes to clean up the massive overflow. All the time, allowing Alex to occupy himself by “washing” the rental car with a wipe.

As I finished making the big change, Mike called and asked if we could give a friend a ride to the airport. I did some quick mental rearranging of the back of the car in my head and said sure. Still, I had promised Alex we would go back into the museum, so we did so for ten minutes, which included a potty break, a boogie through the music performance room, and some time in front of the interactive screen.

After I dragged the kiddos out of the museum again, we headed over to the Hilton to pick up Mike and Halcyon. Alex did ask him “why do you have pink ha-ir?” but otherwise took Halcyon’s appearance in stride, and was quite generous with the high fives. Halcyon was kind enough to help me drag the car seats to the check in, and patiently explain to Alex over and over again that no, he wasn’t going to be on our airplane, because he was going to California and we were going to Florida and so in opposite directions.

Met back up with Mike, got through security, and had some time to kill. So we hung out at an open airport bar that had live music — saw Band of Heathens perform, and enjoyed it enough that we bought the CD. Alex and Nate enjoyed jamming to the music, and Nate even got his picture taken by a reporter for the Austin American Statesman (though I don’t think they ended up using it).

Then, there was the airplane. Nate is at a rough age for travel — nothing occupies him for very long, and he yearns to wander free. Suffice it to say 14 months is not a good age for traveling with a boy who doesn’ t nurse and doesn’t like to nap except laying untouched in a crib. Nate spent the whole 2 hours on the plane hitting me, biting me, throwing any toys offered, lather-rinse-repeat. My travel mantra (I will NEVER see these people again! I will NEVER see these people again!) was the only thing that kept me from crawling under the seat. He finally fell asleep on Mike as we were landing. Figures.

I had forgotten to actually pack the sandwiches I had bought fixin’s for the night before, so we landed hungry and tired at 8:30 pm (7:30 Austin time). We headed directly for yet another meal out. I thought I was picking a casual buffet-type dining establishment, but it turned out to be a fancy steakhouse. Oops. By the time I realized the error of my ways, we were already sitting with two starving kids and the best we could do was get bread into them fast. Nate calmed down once he got some food into him, and Alex was very well behaved, considering (and despite dropping not one, not two, but three forks over the course of dinner). Mike had intended to have a single drink to celebrate his birthday, but the service was poor and it never materialized.

We skipped dessert and just sang “Happy Birthday” to daddy in the car. Mike got the gift of not changing a single diaper today, and a nap on the plane, and a Band of Heathens CD. I never did get it together enough to get him card. Still, as maddening of a day as it was, it was also a perfect one.