Off to Adventure in Portugal

Off to Portugal we went! Our random flight roulette landed us a civilized 2 p.m. departure from gloriously sunny Juneau. Joni, seasoned globetrotter that she is, was bright-eyed and ready for action. This was not her first rodeo, after all; she approached the airport with the swagger of a baby who’s already logged more air miles than most adults.

The first leg to Seattle was semi-smooth, though the “No-Nap Tyrant” once again declared martial law on sleep. She ruled the cabin with iron-fisted babble until we landed in the evening, bleary-eyed but hopeful. Luckily, we gained asylum in the British Airways lounge, found a hidden corner in a back hallway, and watched in awe as our tiny dictator collapsed into a 30-minute power-nap that could have fueled a small nation.

Rejuvenated and slightly overconfident, we boarded the Seattle-to-London leg, trudging past the glowing kingdom of Business Class into the open arms of economy. But I, ever the strategic visionary, had secured the mythical bulkhead seats with a bassinet. A masterstroke of parental foresight.

Once airborne, the cabin crew mounted the baby hammock like it was the Ark of the Covenant. Joni was enthralled, chatting with passersby, charming flight attendants, and babbling like an in-flight podcast host. Then, miracle of miracles, the No-Nap Tyrant abdicated. She slept. We toasted her victory with miniature bottles of airplane wine and watched a movie like civilized humans.

And then, the Captain struck. Apparently, every flicker of turbulence requires babies to be removed from bassinets. This particular pilot had a seatbelt-sign trigger finger. Three times…three times! we were ordered to extract our slumbering cherub from her bassinet and strap her to our chests like sleep-deprived kangaroos. By the third round, our rage was only tempered by sheer disbelief and the faint memory of our humanity.

But Joni? She was a legend. Slept six of the nine hours like she was auditioning for “Zen Baby: The Sequel.”

Upon landing in London, our victory lap was cut short by a malfunctioning passport system that turned Heathrow into a bureaucratic black hole. We missed our connection and were rebooked three hours later. Total travel time: 24 hours door-to-door. Spirits: crushed. Souls: evaporated. Joni? Still unstoppable. She napped opportunistically, flirted shamelessly with strangers, and only revolted for the last 45 minutes of the final Lisbon leg—a heroic performance by any metric.

We arrived in Portugal in the dead of night, eyes hollow, clothes wrinkled beyond recognition, carrying a baby who was somehow still smiling. The Rosenfelds had made it.

Lisbon, we were ready—sort of.