**Yes, it deserves its own post. Read on to see why. I'm sorry that this is so long, but here it goes.
We took an impromptu trip to Anaheim. I didn’t really say anything about it on
Facebook or my blog because I don’t like to advertise when we are out of town
for security reasons. Brian had to go
out there for work so we decided that the kids and I would tag along. I’m going to break the vacation posts into
several small posts, so here goes.
The flight out was a doozy and when reading this you may not
know whether to laugh or cry on my behalf.
We learned a lot of lessons and I’ll share those with you as I go along
so that you can fair better than I when flying with your tots (if you happen to
have them).
First we picked a stupid flight time – 8:00 am – what were
we thinking? To get there an hour early
we would need to wake the kids up no later than about 5:30 and pray that they
were cooperative. Well, they were fairly
cooperative and we were grateful. We got
out the door about 15 minutes later than we meant to, but oh well. If only we knew…
The drive was uneventful.
Naomi was even cheerfully singing in the backseat. We got to where the airport exit is and they
have re-done it and we miss our exit. We
loop around and get back on track. It
only cost us five minutes, so we figure it’s all good. If only we knew…
We pull into the parking at the terminal. We circle and circle and circle and finally
find parking at the very top of the parking structure. Sheesh!
We gather up kids and bags and empty sippy cups and trek into the
terminal. We also notice that Olivia
smells like she has a poopy diaper – guess we’ll deal with that once we get
through security. I’m sure the vision of
us muddling our way down the steps with all of our crap and an umbrella
stroller was quite comical. We wonder
why we didn’t have Brian drop me off with the kids at the door. That would have been good.
We finally get to check in and low and behold it’s about 42
minutes before our flight. Doh! Translation – you can’t get your check in bag
on this flight it will have to go on the 9:00 and the agent informs Brian that
we’ll be lucky to make our flight at all.
In fact, I think she even changes his ticket to be on the 9:00. Gak!
Where did all the time go? We
thought we had this well planned. Guess
Brian and I won’t be grabbing any kind of breakfast.
We head through airport security and this is where the crazy
really amps up. The guy sends us through
the first class line (I assume because we have little ones). This does help a lot so thankful for
that. I explain to N that her beloved Trunki
will have to go on the belt for a little while but she’ll get it back. She seems okay with this. She gets distracted with the trolley that
holds the bag tubs and is trying to push it around. Brian and I divvy up bags and start trying to
get them on the belt. It’s time to move
forward in line, so we let Naomi know that she has to stop playing with the
trolley and come with us. Cue GIANT 2
YEAR OLD TANTRUM! I put it in all caps
because she was most certainly in all caps, 500 point font, bold typeface with
a ton of exclamation points at the end, on the floor kicking and
screaming. If I had the time I would
have videoed it for posterity (and probably handled it better), but alas. Eventually, other passengers help move our
bags through the cue, Brian takes Olivia out of the stroller and through
security and I pick up Naomi for the same.
To add to the complete chaos of this moment Naomi chooses the very
moment that we are walking through the metal detector to arch her back and
throw her head straight back – WHACK! – right into the metal detector. This of course causes the metal detector to
go off so we have to go back through it again.
Oh and she is screaming even louder now.
I take her immediately to a bench to try to calm her down while Brian
waits for our bags. There seems to be
quite a bit of hubbub around our bags in the scanner, they grab several
different ones to search. Turns out
Brian forgot to pull my little netbook out in addition to his laptop and the
lady couldn’t figure out which bag she saw it in. Oddly enough, they searched every bag but the
one that actually had the netbook. Oh
well.
We finally finish and head directly across to our gate which
was on final boarding call. We get
Brian’s ticket fixed, but she can’t do anything about the fact that none of us
are sitting together. Yep, you heard it
right – Naomi, Brian and I are all sitting in separate seats. So, we are the next to last people on the
plane. We gate check the stroller. We haul all of our stuff (3 carry-ons and 4
personal items) and our kiddos onto the plane.
We negotiate seat trades to get all of us together. We settle into our seats (with a bit of
effort and a bit of help from the flight attendant who notes that we have a lot
of stuff). Whew!
Oh, and pee-eew – Olivia still has that dirty diaper and it
seems to have developed a bit of a containment issue. So, I hold her so that Brian’s work pants
don’t get dirty as he’ll have to go into work that afternoon. Which reminds me, I’ve really needed a pit
stop myself ever since we got out of the car.
Oh well. Off we go!
Both girls did great with the take off! I was so pleased and blessed about that
part. Naomi wanted to watch the safety
video again. I guess it was fascinating
to her. Nobody cried a bit. Olivia sucked on her paci and Naomi just chilled.
Once we were in the air for a bit, I noticed a couple people
get up to use the restroom even though the fasten seat belt sign was still
on. I decided to go for it. I slipped in and out unnoticed and felt much
better. Then I grabbed Olivia and her
diaper bag and slipped back in to take care of her. If you’ve ever changed a baby in an airplane,
you know that it’s challenging. Add in a
clothing change and some turbulence and it’s a lovely bit of fun. As I was slipping back out, I ran into the
flight attendant who was quite surprised that anyone was out of there
seat. I apologize and mutter, “We had a
containment issue” and scamper back to my seat.
A few minutes later the captain makes an announcement about the fasten
seat belt sign and not getting up to go to the restroom yet. Related?
Probably. Do I care? Not one bit.
I have a baby that doesn’t smell like a sewage treatment facility so I
am much happier.
The flight itself was really pretty good. It was challenging for me and Brian, and we
noted several times that we had no idea how I was going to manage the return
flight solo. Having a squirmy lap child
and an active toddler on a four hour flight is a lot. At one point, we let Naomi take off her seat belt
and sort of let a little crazy out within the confines of our row. There was a bit of a struggle to get her back
into her seat belt but oh well.
The landing was also uneventful. Both girls did great! Olivia made friends all over the plane with her
grins. We waited for everyone to get off
the plane and then rolled our crew out. We
finally grabbed some breakfast at the airport McDonald’s along with some Starbucks
while we waited for our baggage to arrive on the next flight. Oh, and we tried to get Naomi to go
potty. The girl is not a fan of public potties
even though I brought a little potty seat for her. Basically, she kept saying she needed to go
potty but would patently refuse once she got into the restroom. Finally she broke down and had an accident
when Brian took her (our 3rd attempt). I changed her in the terminal and all was
well again. She has had a really hard
time with the potty thing on this trip which we pretty much expected, but I
feel bad for her.
Anyway, by the time we got all that done, it was time to go
get our bag and the rental car… story continues.
BUT not before I give you some travel tips for traveling by
plane with little ones about the age of mine (2 ½ and 11 months) should you
choose to brave that adventure:
- Have as few carry-ons as possible. I had read this in a travel blog, but in my efforts to save money, ignored it and paid the price of my sanity (so not worth it) – I’m pretty sure the blog even warned me of this. Your kids may be allotted a carry on, but don’t use it. They are a carry on item in and of themselves. I’m guessing once they are school age, they carry stuff, but at this age it’s unlikely. Even if they start off being cooperative, the journey through the airport can be a long and very distracting one, so it’s unlikely that they will remain interested in “helping” you with the luggage and even if they do, it will take way too long to travel through the airport at their dawdling speed.
- Use a cheap umbrella stroller. It’s lightweight and you won’t care if the airline kills it. If you have two adults and two kids on both flights, then use two or use a cheap, no frills double umbrella (I don’t think I really ever found one, so feel free to chime in if you know of one that’s actually cheap). Knowing that I was returning solo, that wasn’t really an option.
- Bring plenty of entertainment. Let me clarify, the entertainment is for the kids not you. You will be plenty “entertained” enough keeping up with the kids.
- Think twice when the beverage cart comes around. Between a very grabby lap baby, a toddler who wants to sip everything you have, and the limited space, enjoying that beverage is difficult at best. We managed with two, but I may not bother on the solo return flight.
- Plan to get there two hours early rather than the one required. With the kids, you will probably still only make it there an hour and a half early and that extra half hour will magically disappear somewhere before you get to your gate. This will also allow you time to do last minute potty trips and diaper changes before boarding.
- Pray, pray and pray. I’m adding this one as I’m sitting back at my home desk. After the flight out, I began covering my return flight in prayer. Praying for my kids to be at ease with things, praying for me to be the loving, patient mom that I needed to be and most importantly praying that God would place kind and helpful people in my path.
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