Ella Zellner

Ella and I flew solo again this Christmas, and what a difference a month makes. When Ella was newly hatched I felt like I was 9 again, at Field day, in the egg race. For those of you who do not know about the egg race, what you have to do is race, while keeping an egg on a spoon that is an arms length away from you body. If you drop the egg, you lose. In my life, Ella was the egg. Now I would say, I feel like I am holding a piece of buttered bread with jam on it. I still do not want to drop Ella but she is much easier to hold. She seems to be at the wonderful age where she can, stand but still is not able to break free and make a run for it. All very good things when trying to take your shoes off, while holding a child,at security in the airport.
I have come to the conclusion that when carrying a baby at the airport people treat me in one of three ways ; indifferent, very helpful, or "oh my gosh that woman has a baby, I must get around her cause I know she is going to slow me down". While waiting to check my backs I had a fella with the latter attitude skip me in line. Skip me. Now pre-baby, I would have not made much of a fuss. I am a strong believer in Karma, Santa Clause and Jesus and I always figured that line skippers would get theirs in the end. However, this time I was carrying an Ella so I said, "Excuse me, I am next". The man proceeded to tell me that all he had to do was just check his luggage and that was it. Funny thing was, that is what everyone in the line, including me had to do. Long story short, he would not un-skip himself and I did the unthinkable, I told on him to one of the attendants. The attendant took me to another line, where I skipped half a dozen people. I have always wondered what it felt like to complain and complain loudly. Always wondered if it works. It does, but not in the way that I want. There I went from being the one that was skipped to skipping 12 or more people. That can't be good for my karma. And since I rely on karma to make sure the woman that Ella throws up on is understanding, I think next time I will go back to trusting in the higher powers that be.