Thursday, March 22nd. Vilnius-Warsaw. We left the apartment at 11am to catch our 1:40pm flight out of Vilnius. The uber ride took about 15 minutes, and we got to the airport around 11:350. The check in counter hadn’t opened yet. Arthur was now complaining and he wanted to be taken out of his car seat. We obliged. With my pack on, I took out Arthur from the car seat and walked with him around the super small terminal while Sean waited in line. At about 11:40, the counters opened and the line started moving. I approached Sean, thinking I was just going to wait in line with him. A man who had been queuing at the Business class line and completed his check in process came up to us and told us to join the Business Class queue. He said, “In Vilnius Airport, baby is always number one.” We looked at each other and sheepishly followed his advise. The other people who were waiting in the economy line didn’t seem to mind. By the time we joined the Business Class queue, we were the next in line. The check-in process was quick. They gave us our boarding passes and the luggage tags for the stroller and car seat.
I had looked online at the seating arrangement, and it was a 2-2 seating so we didn’t bother asking if a row was empty or if we could bring the car seat.
We went straight through security with no problem, and once inside, we headed straight to the gate. We found a seat so that I could feed Arthur. Then, we hung out with Arthur for a while before we put him to sleep.
Arthur had been sleeping for about 15 minutes when the boarding process began. When we got on the plane, we were surprised to find the 3-3 seating arrangement and that we both got aisle seats. Sean quickly asked the flight attendant if we could be seated right next to each other. Did they have a last-minute aircraft change? We didn’t ask, but we wanted them to prioritize us sitting together, and preferably where Arthur wouldn’t have to be in the aisle seat. The flight attendant said that there were only 50 people on this flight so there would be plenty of empty seats. She asked us to stay in our assigned seats until the doors are closed and she would find us a row for us to sit next to each other.
As it turned out, our whole row was empty. We decided to sit on my side. I moved in to the window seat and Sean took the aisle seat. The middle seat was empty.
Arthur woke up as we pushed from the gate. I wasn’t worried about take off so I let him just sit on my lap as he entertained himself.
The flight was only 45 minutes long, but 10 minutes into the flight, Arthur started getting fussy. After my futile attempt to soothe him, Sean decided to walk up and down the aisle with him. It seemed to work quite well.
Then, the captain got on the PA and announced our descent. Sean was at the back of the plane and he quickly returned to our seat which was closer towards the front.
I got ready to feed Arthur. When I offered him to feed, however, he refused. He was not interested in feeding.
I started to worry. If he didn’t want to feed, he would be more likely to feel the pain of the pressure.
We tried to get him to suck on his own hands. Or suck on our finger. He didn’t mind them. He gladly sucked on his hands or my finger.
But it didn’t work. He started crying.
And he cried all the way til we got on the ground. We tried a couple of different things, but it still did not help him. Sometimes he would take a 2-second break from crying, but then he would start screaming all over again. All the shushing and the rocking and the offer to feed did not work. All I could do was just hold him close and tried my best to soothe him.
This was the first time we experienced him crying throughout the descent. So sad.
When we finally landed, we disembarked, got on the shuttle, and waited to be taxied to the terminal. While Sean waited for our bags, I went to change Arthur at the toilet changing station inside the terminal.
Once we got our stroller and car seat, we placed Arthur in the car seat and Sean rocked him to sleep.
We got on an uber shortly after and we were on our way to the Airbnb. Arthur woke up halfway through the 35-minute journey and I had to entertain him.
The owner of the Airbnb was nice enough to help us with our stuff once we arrived at the apartment. The studio was on the second floor (but they called it the first floor due to the ground level being called “ground” instead of “first”) and I was carrying Arthur, so he helped Sean get the car seat and stroller up the set of stairs.
We ended the day with a grocery run and a night in with a home-cook dinner. It felt like an exhausting day even though nothing much happened.
two backpacks and a diaper bag 