Pukes on a Plane

Lydia's family is endearing and funny because they want to see Ernie like every minute he's in town. They want to drive to the airport just to wave at you while you walk to the entrance with your luggage. My family is more understated I think. They'll visit with you for a few hours then will go home.

So with that in mind we still had a family social calendar for today despite needing to pack up the St. Louis airbnb and deal with the flight home.

I think some of them met up at the park before this while I packed. Then we all met up at City Foundry STL for some lunch. This place is one of the few things about St. Louis that I am a little jealous of. It's a former industrial site that they've renovated and turned into a very cool eat/work/play type of joint. I think it even has a music venue in there somewhere that I haven't yet had the pleasure of exploring. The food area is cool because it's packed full of fun little food truck-esque establishments that you can peruse.

Lambert Airport has some decent playground equipment shaped like planes and trains and stuff. I think there's even a little thing where a kid can load pretend luggage into the plane. Airport playgrounds are one of those things I never spared a thought about and now that I have a baby are suddenly pretty important places in my life.

THAT PLANE IS HEADED STRAIGHT FOR THE ARCH

I this this is the face he made when we told him to stop chewing on the flight safety card.

One minute he was chill the next minute he was throwing up on everyone. Bad things aren't allowed to happen to me, however, and so I was outside of the blast radius. Everyone else shed a layer of pukey clothing.

Getting Wild at the Zoo

Ernie's first whirlwind trip to the midwest was wrapping up but there were still some excitements left in store for him.

The Saint Louis Zoo! It's funny I remember that in my St. Louis days, if I wanted to go to the zoo I would park miles away if necessary and wonder to myself what sort of money hating idiot would pay to park when the zoo itself is free. Today I have become that money hating idiot so that my prince of a son doesn't have to ride in his stroller a minute longer than is necessary. Must be nice.

I did buy a pineapple drink that was inside a pineapple but I'm sure that was somehow Ern's fault as well.

I would someday like to just spend an entire day hanging out with primates. They are so much fun to gawk at and there's never enough time. Fun fact: cotton-top tamarin dads carry their babies on their backs around 10 days after they are born.

I'm glad that I learned that the Missouri Tarantula is a thing after I did all that Missouri hiking and camping.

When we got to the airport I made sure Ernie was aware how lucky he is that we aren't on tamarin rules.

The carseat thing is a bit of a crapshoot. We didn't buy him a ticket but apparently if they have extra seats available you can ask to bring your car seat aboard.

He had a nice snooze in his seat.

Ern perused the drink menu then told Lydia his order.

Mt. Rainier is always a nice welcome back to the PNW.

We did pretty well the entire flight but then we were stuck sitting on the tarmac for an hour. Ern did not like that so much.

Ernie gets close to zero screen time so it's a nice secret weapon to keep him entertained in an emergency situation.