We flew to Atlanta. With the baby.

I'd been dreading it for so long that it actually turned out much better than I expecteed. I think I was most surprised by the very unrestrained nature of the child-flight. Babies Reid's age just get held in your arms, like a sack of potatoes. Flight attendants wander the cabin ensuring that the tray tables are up and the seat belts are fastened, and I'm told to put away any marginally bulky thing I have on my lap, but if I'm toting a miniature human, I just keep him tucked in my arms and that's that.

And the reality is that I'm a little concerned about flying, but not for the reasons anyone expects. I am concerned about being hauled off by Ashcroft's minions and tossed into a navy brig somewhere because I've got a funny name. I'm worried about being held back or taken aside while TSA agents scurry about making perfectly certain I'm not a terrorist. And while they do their little tap dance on my civil liberties, I freak out, and that's when things go bad.

So I tell myself over and over again that flying with the baby will be fine, that I won't freak out, that we'll be fine.

And we are. We performed a daring shuttle relay to get to the airport, wherein we all drove there, K, me, Reid, then Reid and K get out at the airport and I drive the car back to the house while simultaneously calling a taxi to meet me at the house and take me to the airport. This is because parking your car at National Airport is far more expensive than this cab-ride and the cab-ride we'll take when we get back. Everything from tickets to taxies to parking is more expensive at Reagan National Airport. It's like he's screwing us from beyond the filmy frontier of Alzheimers. Weird.

So we get checked in, and nobody ever blinks an eye at Arab-named yours truly. I am traveling with a baby. Reid is my shield of impenetrability. People see him and immediately want to discuss his age, his demeanor, his dimensions, his ability to travel, their first children, their first flights with babies, anything but my heritage and how it shouldn't be a topic of discussion at airports.

I never led Reid go. I carry him through check-in, I carry him through security, I hold him at the gate area while K uses the ladies room. I refuse to put him down. He is my security blanket, and I'm fearful of everyone, and proud like a man with a blue ribbon his chest.

Right down the jetway, right down the center of the plane, I've got this beautiful little carepackage and I don't care much about the expressions on the faces of all the people.

It's strange, because a year ago I was one of them, praying and hoping that the baby-people wouldn't end up next to me, sentencing me to a flight full of screaming, sobbing, and futile parental attempts at conciliation. Now I wear a new face: "This splendid little baby will do nothing to hurt you," my face says, "and, in fact, if you gaze upon his sleepy little face, you, too, will melt."

Reid was perfect, like a flour sack. He drank a bottle, he cooed and slept. The flight was effortless: we took off, landed and deplaned in two hours flat. The Atlanta airport was like a carnival ride for the boy. The stroller onto the moving sidewalk, then onto the high-speed underground, into the space-aged main terminal, and Reid was perfect.

Perhaps this whole flying thing isn't so bad after all.