Nolan's Inaugrual Flight, and Why Does Mommy Dress Like a Whore?

Last week we took Nolan on his first plane trip, to San Diego. I wanted a practice run for the longer flight to Chicago in June.

Here's what I learned:

1. TSA is an even more of a giant pain in the ass with a baby. Now I understand why Midway has separated the lines out for "novice" travelers. Otherwise known as the people I hated before I had a munchkin with 14 pieces of luggage to drag through the airport. We are totally green circle people now.

2. Your 6 month old is a suspect, too. I thought things were going well, we took a friend's "divide and conquer" approach to security--Blong handled the luggage and I took the baby--everything was dissasembled, on the belt, ready to go. My big ommission--I didn't take the baby's hoodie off. Yes, I know the fucking rule: jackets (and sweatshirts) have to come off before going through the metal detector. Really, honestly--I did not think it applied to tiny babies. Just to show you the extent of naivete I am functioning under when it comes to the executive branch's enforcement powers.

I was about to step through when the agent said to me "You need to take the baby's jacket off." Stupidly, I said to her, "Are you serious?" Which leads me to my next lesson:

3. Apparently, I dress like a slut when I travel. Aforementioned federal employee fired back at me, "YES. And the only reason I am not making you take yours off is because what you have on there is so skimpy." [For the record, it was a black v-neck t-shirt, ok, it's not like I remembered to take my clear plastic heels off but didn't want to expose the pleather halter with the keyhole cut-out to the world.]
At this point, all of my professional traveler friends are rolling their eyes and thinking, "no shit, this is why security lines are so long," and they are right. This, more than anything else, is why I am joining the green circle club--baby has addled my brain and affected my ability to multi-task. I have baby ADD. I was so worried about the pacifier attached to the car seat getting covered in filth on the conveyer belt that I didn't think to remove my jacket.

By the way, this is not a new phenomena. In my pre-child days, I got tossed out of St. Peter's Basilica for wearing this:

According to the 400 year old asshole working as a docent there, I was exposing too much skin. For the twelfth century, which is I believe where the Catholic Church is currently operating.

Despite all of this, Nolan was good (asleep) on the plane, and we had a fun and uneventful trip. I now have some confidence to go forward with Chicago. This time, I will dress my kid like a whore, in a super tight little onesie, and we will sail through the line (green circle, of course).