Tom Arnold is the Coolest

There were two distinctly Iowan qualities in the woman behind the ticket counter at the Cedar Rapids airport Sunday morning; Midwestern friendliness and an enthusiasm for Tom Arnold. The man most famous to the majority of the country for his marriage and divorce from Rosanne Barr is revered in his home state. Iowans are like that; you stay loyal to them, they’ll stay loyal to you.

“There’s a celebrity on your flight!” said the woman, clearly excited to share the news.

Despite my Dallas-residing, too cool for school attitude, the Iowan in me was intrigued.

I walked toward security thinking, 1) I can’t imagine Tom Arnold appreciates airline employees alerting travelers of his presence, given the inclination of star-struck rubes to hassle people they recognize from television, and 2) my folks need to wrap up good-byes with their grandson ASAP, I gotta go find Tom Arnold!

Many people, especially from rural areas, approach celebrities for pictures and autographs. I do not. By leaving them alone I obey an unspoken code usually broken by those who rarely see celebrities in person. I used to work at a television station in Dallas and once shoulder bumped a diminutive fellow who turned out to be Richard Marx. Clearly, I can handle myself in the presence of megastars.

On this occasion, I was traveling with my 10 month-old son, meaning there was a good chance I would ruin Tom Arnold’s flight. To acknowledge the situation without breaking the code, I felt it appropriate to tweet him a hassle-free preemptive apology:

To my surprise and the pleasure of those seated around me, Gabe was a perfect little traveler. Over the two-hour flight, he didn’t have a single outburst. When he exited the plane, Tom (we’re on a first name basis) looked at Gabe, smiled and said, “Hey, Buddy!”

I had to admit it was a pretty neat interaction to tell people about. My Iowa friends would get a kick out of it.

Then on the way home, I received this reply to my pre-flight tweet:

Tom Arnold is the coolest. And not just because I’m from Iowa.

No Vacation, No Problem

By Blake Friis

Snowshoeing up a Colorado mountain was just as miserable as I believed it would be when my wife suggested it. Hundreds of people having the time of their lives flew downhill, many taking the time to inform us we were going the wrong way.

I was making the best of a “ski” trip with my wife, who had been pregnant for six months and had non-refundable tickets in her possession for seven, so I laughed and nodded instead of telling each unoriginal yuppie to eat shit and die.

A vacation planned on the strength of skiing, alcohol, and hot tubbing is substantially marginalized when one of the participants becomes pregnant, but we made the best of it and managed to enjoy ourselves. We looked ahead to the following year and thought the trip would serve as a nice getaway during our first year of parenthood.

Our friends made the annual trip to Steamboat this week. Our participation was limited to “Liking” their pictures on Facebook.

As parents, we love to go on about the greatness of parenthood – the journey, the joy, the legacy. Less common are discussions on the cost of parenthood. The cost of this miracle is freedom. At the very least, freedom is a relative term with children.

Every single day I look at my son and can’t believe he’s mine, but there are days I also think it would be nice take my wife out to dinner without having to pack a diaper bag. We no longer have the luxury of going to a movie on a random Tuesday night or eating at a restaurant where it's frowned upon to leave a wake of crackers and cheerios on the floor by your table.

No recreational activity or extra hour of sleep on the weekend can match the wonder of an average day with my son, but there are moments when even the most engaged father longs for the freedom to strap clunky snowshoes to his feet and trudge his fat ass up a mountain to the amusement of wealthy skiers and their turtlenecks.

As our friends were skiing we realized something amazing; every day with our 9 month-old has a vacation-like quality. Watching my son meticulously pull everything out of his toy box until he finds his green maraca has become our mountain sunset. Chasing him from room to room has become our snowshoeing. Thank God.

There are times I miss certain elements of life before parenthood, and I don’t think there is any shame in admitting it. We don’t have the freedom to take off on a whim, whether it’s for sushi on a Wednesday or a weekend out of town. We haven’t been to a concert or movie since Gabe was born.

What we have done is much more fulfilling.

The Dark Knight Rises would have been better on IMAX than on our television, but we couldn’t get to the theater. On the other hand, no form of entertainment could possibly match the freedom to spend an afternoon helping Gabe get the hang of the Batman cart he got for Christmas.

Freedom is a relative term. So is Luck. We have sacrificed a lot of freedom over the last nine months. I have no idea how we got so lucky.

The Highs and Lows of Holiday Travel

By Blake Friis

It's midnight in the middle of winter at the Kansas City airport. I am waiting for a rental car and singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star to an understandably pissed off 8-month-old. The reality of traveling with a baby is falling short of the cautious optimism I carried into the trip.

Traveling 850 miles to create timeless family memories begins with a question void of Christmas cheer: which mode of transportation will make me want to kill myself least?

Driving offers the freedom to dictate pace and keeps the misery private when the junior member of the operation decides being confined to a car seat for 12 hours is a crock of shit. Babies throw massive fits over the course of a drive, but a 30-minute cool-down stroll through an Oklahoma Wal-Mart during the holidays provides all the motivation one needs to get back in the saddle and carry on to greener pastures.

The downside of the road is it’s a boring beat down. A family road trip is like the drive-home from Spring Break. Everyone is tired, irritable, and hopes the smelly loudmouth in the backseat doesn't puke.

That’s why we choose to shell out a few extra bucks to fly. But the friendly skies are not without their own set of challenges.

Driving is a battle of attrition, but flying has an unmatched ceiling for potential chaos. Airport security, cramped airplane restrooms, and ear-popping changes in elevation prove humans were never meant to fly. Challenging the laws of nature with a child in tow is especially egregious.

One year ago, in the Minneapolis airport, we shared a laugh at the expense of a couple struggling through the terminal with a young child and all the baggage – physical and emotional – required to travel anywhere with young children. Approximately 364 days later, we laughed at ourselves, despite not finding the situation particularly funny. We had become the overwhelmed couple in the airport with sore shoulders short fuses.

Looking over my shoulder from the boarding line, I was relieved to see a dozen other families with small children. There is comfort in a theoretical blanket of anonymity, but that is contingent on each baby having about the same lung capacity.

For most of his first flight, my son was a trooper. He charmed the grandfather-to-be sitting next to us and endeared himself to the high school English teacher sitting behind us. With the exception of the man in front of us, whose hair he attempted to grab on more than one occasion and whose seat he took great joy in kicking, everyone in our section observed his happy disposition and returned his smiles.

Then our plane began its descent. That’s when the levy broke.

For the final 15 minutes of our flight, my son managed to transfer the pain in his ears to the ears of all the friends he made over the previous 45 minutes. He wasn't the only child to dial up a good freak out on the flight, but his was by far the most powerful.

I don't know if it was general understanding or holiday spirit, but the people on our flight could not have been more understanding and supportive as we struggled.

There is no perfect way to cover 850 miles with a young child, but the experience can be surprisingly fulfilling. We met some great people on our trip that we never would have encountered before parenthood.

When childless couples with one piece of luggage laugh at us in all their beautiful, well-rested glory, we smile and nod. They’ll appreciate the smile more than they know one day, when an inconsolable little maniac with hurting ears makes them feel like those parents.

Turns out we’re all those parents.