Dirty Airport People & the Families We <3

I’m sitting cross legged on the floor at LAX in California.

Not because I prefer the floor.
Especially the dirty, public floor of an airport.
But because it is the only seating available.
Well, at least its the only seat within reach of the an electrical outlet that isn’t already being dominated by fellow travelers.

I plug in my phone and call home.

First, I tell my husband about the counselor I sat next to on the plane earlier that day (he’s a counselor too) and about how airline peanuts REALLY SHOULD be easier to open.
Then, Chuck puts me on speaker phone and I talk to the emperor Justus (who, keep in mind, is 10 months old).

Here is an exact copy of the transcript:

Me: Justus, Justus, Justus….Momma, Momma, Momma (this is a game I play with him, where I tickle him when I say his name and he presses his face into mine when I say his).

Justus: Buhbuhbuhbuhbuhbuhbuh.

(A woman walks by me at the airport, scowling in my generally dirty-floor direction.)

Me: Hey Tweeter (nickname #409, evolved from Sweetie), how was your day today?

Justus: Duuuu maaaaaaa

Me: Did you have fun playing with the kids?

(Justus presses several buttons on the phone. All I hear are keytones singing. I take this as code which means–loosely translated–he needs me to come home. He simply cannot live without his Momma.)

Me: Did you watch the Fresh Beats today? (Don’t even get me started on the Fresh Beats–his fav singing/dancing show. You have to see it–and feel sorry for the adult actors–to believe it.)

Justus: Buhbuhbuhbuh.

Me: Alright, I miss you, baby!

Justus: (sucking noise)

Daddy: Justus, stop eating the phone. (To me) He’s eating the phone. (To Justus) How many times do I have to tell you? No one wants slobber on their phone.

I laugh, say I love you four more times to both of them and hang up, going back to my other life as a dirty floor person.
 
This trip is not the norm.
Since the tour for my new book, Picking Dandelions, started, my husband and little one have been my groupees at every event (added bonus–there’s always at least two people in attendance, one of whom speaks English; added disadvantage–they fail to be adequately impressed by my autographs).

But this is the solo-event, the lose-lose combination of mid-week and way-out-of-state.
And so here I am, wondering how long it would take me to run home to Michigan real quick to kiss my man and my baby good night.

The good news is I’ve come to friends, to the Beresfords who transplanted here from home, and to Renee Johnson, another authoress making her rounds in the church arena. So I’m in good company and accountable for my time on the road–accountability being a value shared by some of my Christian author/speaker-buds who want to juggle family and projects well.

And the good news is Chuck and the emperor are along for the ride for the rest of the tour, so we’ll be rolling through Kentucky in a couple weeks, headed Missouri-way In June, driving up the west coast in July and so forth. (Don’t worry, sports fans. We’ve been careful to plan around the Cubs’ baseball schedule, so we can catch as many road games as possible–priorities are priorities, people). And then we’ll head back and take a nice long break of staying home and sleeping in and browsing the nearby park before school starts in the fall.

The idea is to still do what we want to do (for me, to write; for him, to catch Cubs games), but not at the expense of our normal life.
Because we’re not just in this for 2010.
We still want to be doing this–
exactly this–
being married,
loving kids,
and sharing our faith (and love of the Cubs) with the bigger world,
30 years from now.

We’re in it for the long haul.
Which is why I guess I can make it, just this one night, sleeping this many miles away from my baby.
The jet lag, not to mention the expensive cushy hotel comforter and unusually plump pillows (that I’d never splurge for) will help.