first flight

Image from B-Side Blog

I still remember my first time on an airplane. I was eight years old and my dad was taking my brother, sister and me to Disney World for the first time. My dad is an early rising kind of guy, so he booked the flight for around 6:30am, which meant we had to get up at 4:00 in morning and drive an hour to the nearest airport. We didn't mind, of course, because we were wide awake with anticipation. What does an airplane look like on the inside? Will we be able to see the pilot? Can we look out the window? Before boarding our flight, we even took a picture with the flight attendant--they still referred to them as "stewardesses" at the time--and the image of us standing next to her with her frizzy blond curls and bad uniform is forever imprinted on my mind.

When it was time to take our seats, the three kids sat together. My sister got the window because she's the oldest, I (the middle child) was stuck in the middle and my brother got the aisle across from my dad because he was most likely to act up. Those were also the days when they served meals during your flight, and I chose pigs-in-a-blanket with a side of baked apples as my breakfast. The flight was relatively unremarkable--no serious turbulence or crash landings--and I've loved flying ever since. I often joke that I have no childhood memories, but I remember that flight.

Tomorrow Scout will take her first flight at the tender young age of nine weeks (if you don't count us flying to Milwaukee when I was nine months pregnant). Catcher was about the same age when he first rode on an airplane (not counting our trip to Hawaii when I was 16 weeks pregnant). We're going to Maryland for the weekend to visit my brother, sister-in-law and their brood of four children and three dogs. I can't wait to see everyone, and I can't wait to tell the kids someday when they say they "never get to do anything" that they were riding on airplanes before they could even hold up their own heads.