The Sacrificial Trip

I had the experience of flying Porter Air this weekend. It was AMAZING. It was SO AMAZING, in fact, that I have decided to blog about it EVEN THOUGH I had vowed to myself NOT to blog about this weekend in NY for fear of looking like an irresponsible mother and a jetsetter.

So I’ll start by the justification : I went for Rob.

I confess, in the grand scheme of sacrifices I have made for my husband, this was probably the EASIEST to do. Last September, my saintly-non-complaining-husband transitioned effortlessly from his 12 hour a day job as a teacher (interspersed with the occasional 4 month stint at his other 24hours a day job at Camp Kirk each summer) to his new job as a stay at home dad.  And despite what mothers of 2 month olds may think, the job is still tough even if you don’t have to breastfeed or get up in the middleof the night. Rob has been LONG overdue for a vacation and a change of pace.

The first thing that tipped me off to this was his announcement one night in the hot tub that he had decided to fly to MONCTON by HIMSELF to watch the world CURLING championships.

Although that may sound like fun to SOMEONE out there, I took it as a cry for help.

Hence -- the trip to New York.

I know it isn’t Moncton. And I certainly wouldn't promise him any edge-of-your-seat- exhilarating-curling-watching while we were there, but if he was itching for a weekend away, this would have to do.

So off we went to New York.

OH, right, and the SECOND person I did this for was my mother. And father. (Can you see that light flickering in the distance? I think it must be my halo….) My parents have been going through Toby-withdrawal since our visit to Whistler in February (DAMMIT – I wasn’t going to mention THAT trip, EITHER on my blog…seriously, I DO work sometimes and also enjoy being with my son….) But my mother in Grand-son-withdrawal consists of increasingly frequent phone calls and lamenting emails…one of my favourites was a message I got on my answering machine a few weeks ago…

“Hi. (said in a sad drawl)
Its Grandma… (sigh)
Grandpa and I are heading to Loblaws which is Toby’s FAVOURITE store.
(at this point the drawl becomes more a whine..)
We are even going to get a MUFFIN which he LOVES to get at Loblaws...and we wondered if he could come with us…PLEASE mom and dad???”

Yes, of COURSE I’ll drive your grandson down 2 hours through rush hour traffic 45 minutes before bedtime so he can go with you to get a muffin at the one and only Loblaws store at St Clair and Bathurst. (sarcasm)

BUT…if it makes your life easier I WILL go to New York for the weekend with my husband and leave Toby with you for a full 36 hours so you can go to Loblaws and eat muffins to your hearts content ☺ (no sarcasm)

And hence, the trip to New York.  With Porter Airlines.  Which, coming back to my original point, was FANTASTIC.   To summarize - -after the full 5 minutes it took to go through check in and security the man in the uniform with the gun and the bleeper-thing actually SMILED at me, handed me my shoes and pointing me to the lounge and saying, “Fresh coffee to your left. Have a nice day!”

At first I thought it must be some secret code the FBI invented when they have decided to apprehend someone and I tentatively walked “to the left” expecting at any second to be grabbed from behind and strip searched….but found myself instead in a bright cheerful room complete with leather chair, free newspaper, IMAC computers, FREE bottled water, biscotti and of course….oodles and oodles of coffee. I could go on and on….Take my word for it. Go to NY. Leave the kids. Appease the husband. Then come on over after and we’ll compare halos…