Planes, Rental Cars, and infant car seats...

Mike - Well, we're finally here in Texas!!! As I sit writing this, I am looking out the 8th floor window of the DFW Airport Grand Hyatt (Greg C's suggestion - and a good one at that!), looking out over the entire length of two runways and constant airport operations. I'm in Aero-Geek heaven. There's an HD TV in the room - who cares, I have a window the length of the room with live takeoffs, landings, and taxi ops. :-)

It's almost surreal to believe that in 20 hours or so we will have a third little life with us. Holly's ecstatic and kept kissing me all day. Not a bad thing ;-) I was suffering from a bit of a Ravens hang-over this morning and my voice is completely shot.

The adventure so far - the flight was great. Right on time departure and early arrival. Then things went a bit downhill. At Christy's advice - which, if well-executed, would have been GREAT advice - instead of lugging our car seat down here, we requested one from the rental car company. We both called to see, if per both Christy's and several baby book authors' suggestions, we could get a rental car w/ an infant seat already installed. Strangely (to me) Hertz and Avis said that they don't install them. Holly then called Budget, which ASSURED her THREE TIMES over the phone that A) there would be an infant seat, B) it would INSTALLED already for us when we got the car, and C) it would have an infant/newborn head support. So, we get to the rental car counter at Budget... where the guy says, "Oh, no, you were misinformed, no one installs baby car seats in Texas - we can't because of liability law." Oh, and there was not infant head support with the car seat. So, we went over to Hertz and Avis and a few others, who could do no better for us - and only Avis even had infant car seats, and no head supports, so we stayed with Budget. The good news was that Irving Mall is only about 3 miles from DFW Airport and they had a Burlington Coat Factory w/ a Baby Depot which did indeed have infant car seat head supports of many kinds, so we drove over there and picked one up for the low-low-price of $10.78 after tax. I then went out to the car to install the head support AND the car seat (oh, and no base - just seat held in by seatbelt). While I was doing that - Holly went shopping and bought a few more baby items - 2 sleepsets and an outfit that says "I love my Mommy" and a blanket that says "Daddy & Mommy Love Me, and I Love Mommy and Daddy."

Because, you know, otherwise Daniel is going to go naked... but Holly did want to get a few things for Daniel from Texas to be keepsakes so that, when he brings his date to the junior prom over for dinner, she can show the date these items and tell her that she bought them for Daniel in Texas the day before we became a family.

Oh, Holly says to tell everyone that, on the flight in, Holly crammed in the 1st 8 weeks of chapters of the book, "Your Baby's first year, week by week." She decided to go to 8 weeks based on the the weight and height status given at the beginning of each chapter. These reminded me more than a bit of Dave Barry's comments in his 1984 classic, "Babies and other Hazards of Sex." Seriously, the entry for Week 4 says quite definitively - note, no range here -right at the top of the chapter - "Week 4. How Big Is The Baby This 4th Week? Baby weighs 9 pounds and is 21 inches long this week." Uh, that was Daniel before the end of week 2. "Week 6. How Big Is The Baby This 6th Week? Baby weighs 9 1/2 pounds and is 21 1/4 inches long this week." Uh, that was Daniel before the end of week 2... According to this, from what we can surmise, Daniel should be about to graduate with his Master's from grad school... ;-) Seriously, by size, according to this book - he's 8 weeks old.

OK, to be fair and serious for a moment (who? Me???) Holly says that this is the BEST book she has read and has great info.

That's all for now... we're now off to our last dinner as just the two of us until Daniel goes off to college... which, according to the book, should be by the middle of next week... ;-)

Holly - we did manage to have a lovely dinner at the Grand Hyatt restaurant. We realized that when we got engaged we celebrated with drinks and the largest shrimp cocktail ever at the Hyatt in Inner Harbor. Then our wedding reception was held at the Dulles Hyatt. Now the night before we become parents we are celebrating at the Grand Hyatt at DFW. You will notice not only the hotel theme (maybe they should sign us up for one of their TV ads) but also the airport theme (b/c I know it makes Michael happy). Hopefully the wine will help me sleep a little tonight b/c I have been in high gear the last two weeks waiting for this moment to happen . . I know I will be having pleasant dreams tonight.