One way to make tough decisions is to take incremental steps that don't commit you to anything yet.

All of us assign different values to things, and not all of those values are going to line up with others'.

If you are being shuffled around, then you should feel shuffled around.

If the guests want to wrest the check away from the host, because the host is also the guest of honor, then the guest who volunteers has to cover the whole thing. A guest can't volunteer -all- of the guests to pay for the host/honoree.

Unfortunately, I think the expectation is that birthday girls don't pay.

It's okay to forgive yourself immediately and for good.

I realize that people fly with small children all the time, and that babies are easier in some ways because all they do is sit/lie around anyway, but damn it's hard to keep a baby comfortable on any flight, much less a long one, particularly amid the looks of horror they will get from fellow passengers as it dawns on them that their 10- to 13-hour flight might come with a soundtrack of screaming baby.