I’ve flown with Cooper several times. While we’ve had a few dicey situations, overall he’s pretty good on a plane. I know all the tricks in order to assure success: plenty of food, drink, toys and other distractions. However, when I unexpectedly had to go to Florida the other week alone with a now-walking Cooper, it was a whole new world.

Matt Logelin must be some sort of crazy voodoo magician, because holy Christ, traveling with a mobile child is an entirely new level of stress that I was wholly unprepared for. I mean, yes, I was logistically prepared, and I knew the fact that Cooper was busy cutting three molars may complicate matters, but what I didn’t expect? What I didn’t see coming? Was lining up for our flight and having Cooper running away from me. To the point where I couldn’t see him. In a busy international airport. And then I died.

Cooper ran out of the gate area and was almost in the main terminal, when passengers started alerting me to where he was. We ended up catching him, but anyone who has ever interrupted a baby on a quest for freedom can probably guess what happened next: screaming, thrashing and crying were all on the menu, and lasted, unabated, until we sat down in our seats. Why my completely full flight stayed completely full after that is completely beyond me. I would have assumed that at least half of them would have said, “not. Fucking. Worth. It.” and hightailed it in the opposite direction.

During the flight itself, it was a constant game of, “do you want some blueberries? Would you like to play with the container? Let’s read a book. Let’s play with Scout. No, you can’t get down. Let’s go to the front of the plane to change your diaper. It’s occupied and I can’t wait up here? Let’s go to the back of the plane to wait for the only bathroom with a changing table to free up. Let’s go back to the front of the plane and change your diaper. Rock, rock, rock. Sleep.

Yes, the only reason I didn’t just dissolve Kate Gosselin-style over Georgia is because at the halfway mark, Cooper passed out. Not only that, but he stayed asleep for the rest of the flight, even allowing me to read a little bit. I snapped this picture as a reminder that even though we’re trapped in a tin can, hurtling through the sky, and my heart rate has been somewhere around 200 for the past two hours, he really is still my snuggly, adorable little boy. Until we landed and he refused to take a nap for the next five days. But that’s a different story.