Little One's Christmas Adventures Part One

My trip with Little One was so epic that I will have to narrate the experience in installments.
This makes me kind of like Those People (ahem....father figures? no offense buuuuttt....) who trap you, chain you to the sofa, and tape your eyes open all "Clockwork Orange" style and force you to watch a slide-show of pictures from their vacation. Or vacations. Or entire life. Depending on their cruelty and your adeptness at coming up with good excuses.
However, you my Peanuts do in fact have the ability to just click the little red "x" when you've had enough, so I've decided that this is a loophole and I refuse to feel guilty. And since this was, in fact, Little One's first vacation, plane trip, road trip, visit with great-grandparents and two aunts and first Christmas....Well. I've decided that it's my duty as a properly overbearing mother to record every detail for posterity.
So here we go, Part One. Just sit down and get comfy, and I'll go find the tape.

PART ONE: An Ominous Beginning
We are all aware of my LOPWASB fears. To combat the panic, I made lots and lots of lists.
I spent two days crossing off lists, packing, cleaning, preparing. I left super early. I got to the metro station, parked, and loaded myself up like a pack mule in pumps, and headed for the train. I was chanting my anti-LOPWASB mantra "Oooommmm I can so totally do this everything is fine Ooooommmmm". And feeling rather smug at my fabulous capableness.
Then the airline called to cheerfully alert me to my canceled flight. Dun dun duuuuun.
By the time I got ahold of an actual person at AMERICAN AIRLINES Little One was screaming her sweet little head off. But they were able to reschedule me- if I drove like a nascar racer to another airport. Which meant two busses and a train ride for J to pick up the car after he got off of work, just to drive home in DC rush hour. Which is NOT NICE American Airlines! (glaring)
But- we made it. I was mentally doing the LOPWSB mantra and simultanously praying to be seated next to a mother of seven or a deaf person, when my seatmate came along. He was very businessy, very young, and talkking football on one of his cell phones. Uh oh.
Well it turns out he was actually super nice and had a toddler himself, so really the ominousness was uncalled for on that one. AND even if he hadn't been kid friendly, I am happy to report that all your donations to the LOPWSB fund paid off! Thanks!
Other than a few moments of fussing on the next plane, Little One was an angel. And that was at 12am after we'd been traveling 12 hours and sitting on the tarmac for one, so I think she was really just voicing everyone's concerns.
In fact, I had lots of people (unfriendly looking people! WASPy people! Thug-lookin people!) Approach me when the planes arrived to tell me how good and precious Little One had been, and tell me how they could just eat her up she was so sweet. It just goes to show, I should never underestimate. Little One, myself, or strangers. And though I think I might just go ahead and continue to underestimate American Airlines a little bit, I have to appreciate that they did (eventually) get us to part two. Which is coming soon. With pictures.