Nine airplanes with my two kids–my infant daughter and two year old psycho of a son–seven of those flights alone–and I finally feel like I’ve figured this crazy brand of traveling out.
But don’t be fooled; it wasn’t always this way. Before I can write about the tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way, before I make it sound like I’ve got this mom thing even remotely figured out, you have to know that is one million percent not the case.
I have to share my train wreck of an initial flight with both my kids.
My son’s first flight was at nine days old, his introduction to international flying at two and a half weeks old, and we’ve been on maybe forty planes together since. Once he was no longer a newborn, it ceased being any type of easy. But now my son was barely two; we were heading across the country without Daddy–and adding my five month old daughter to the mix?
I’ll admit, I was a little unsure of whether or not I was boarding the plane to my death.
Also, this was the flight to Albuquerque we took for my friend’s wedding that happened to be the exact same weekend we moved. Insanity all around.
Feel free to use my misfortune as a basis of comparison to make you feel better about your own experience traveling with your children. Certainly, the majority of trips are not nearly as chaotic as this one.
5:17am on a Saturday morning in August.
My husband drops me off at departures with the single stroller, two car seats, two kids, two diaper bags, and two carry on bags. He waves goodbye and drives away, leaving me alone with nine things to carry and no way to even make it through the sliding doors into the terminal.
I stack everything on everything else, baby included, and I strap the toddler boy into his brand new leash backpack that I bought in anticipation of this trip—freedom without chasing the escaping kid backwards through the security line sounds like a sweet deal, right?
Wrong. Toddler hates it. I make him wear it anyway and we start on our journey; I am slowly dragging all our bags plus the car seats and kids to the entrance where I know security to be.
Wrong again. Well, not totally wrong—the entrance was there—but now the line wraps all the way around the whole entire terminal almost twice and I have to trek back to get a place in line behind literally a thousand people. I suppose everyone in North Carolina is leaving Raleigh at the exact same time and is standing in line in front of me but it’s okay, a nice agent will take pity on me and whisk me and my nine things to the priority line, right?
Wrong a third time. Apparently once your baby turns into a toddler, airport personnel cease to care about you.
(Which is so wrong because toddler moms have it 82374x harder.)
Kind man in front of me helps me with my suitcase. Kind lady behind me chases down toddler son who has managed to escape his backpack and is making a run for it.
Kind lady returns with toddler and tells me she’ll keep an eye on him. Meanwhile, the car seats and bags stacked in the single stroller keep falling off my luggage mountain and I cannot hold onto it all. Praise Jesus for kind man who continues to pull my suitcase and not judge my complete lack of control of the situation. I suppose if kind man and kind lady are both unattached they should marry–they would create particularly helpful offspring.
As if I didn’t have enough in my hands, my toddler son decides his backpack leash is the cruelest trick I’ve ever ever played on him and begins writhing on the floor. The line is moving, we are close to missing our flight thanks to everyone in the state leaving the same airport at the same time, and I have no choice but to literally drag psychotic son through the airport as he kicks and sobs and generally acts as though his world is ending.
Behind us, the floor is clean. Little man’s jacket is filthy with whatever was on the floor. Alas, the price of moving a stubborn toddler. I take deep breaths and imagine bathing in Thieves oil.
Eventually we make it to security, which takes me another 17 minutes to get through since they want me to disassemble my stroller, take the baby out of the carrier, remove my shoes etc. The process reminds me of a turtle wading through molasses. We make it through and our flight is on its final boarding call.
Kind lady saves the day again and offers to help me with my bags but I am so late. I can not afford to merely walk to my gate but toddler son refuses to move any faster than a moping sloth so I leave my kid (rather than my bags, as initially offered) with kind lady while I sprint to my gate with the stroller and baby on my chest and plead with the gate agents to wait just a moment longer. I trudge back, exhausted and without the willpower to sprint since the agents have granted my request, to rescue my screaming son and I find him traumatized, believing his mother has abandoned him.
Toddler, who should have been grateful for the reunion with the mother he thought abandoned him, is writhing and screaming and refusing to move. Baby is sobbing because she’s been on a roller coaster ride in the carrier thanks to the sprinting and the desperate grabbing at my tumbling luggage mountain. I likewise long to writhe and scream and refuse to move but someone has to stay sane or all is lost.
The cherry on top of the ice cream sundae of doom is missing pre-boarding and nearly knocking out multiple old ladies on the plane as I try to navigate the very narrow aisle with far too many bags/kids in my arms.
We did eventually make it Albuquerque in one piece and everything was great, the agony of my first plane trip with both of them (somewhat, anyway) forgotten. Every trip since then has been a million times easier thanks to the coming tips and tricks I learned the hard way.
You’ll do better than me, I promise—and if you don’t, you’ll be the super mom who by some miracle managed to get her psychotic kids on the plane and she survived!
Motherhood is all about facing giants, big and small.
It all starts when your body grows a human and then you birth that tiny nugget. Then there’s the giant of lovingly teaching your child to nurse, to sleep, eventually to read and use a spoon and respond to discipline and not use his little sister as a car track or punching bag.
You have conquered every giant so far and you have come out at least almost in one piece. You can do this too–and stay tuned because in a couple of days, I’m sharing some tips and tricks that have made it all easier for us.
Take the trip. It will not be a walk in the park but it will bring so much more goodness. Your kids will grow from traveling and you can conquer this just as you’ve conquered every other hard thing in your time as a mother.
Also, now you not how not to fly with two kids. Leashes + strong willed kids = disaster. Leaving your toddler with a stranger while you sprint across the airport is ill advised. Always, always, always leave more time than you think you need; kids in airports truly are like turtles wading through molasses–unless they’re running away from you, of course.
It could go according to plan; it probably won’t; either way, it will be a great memory.
Take the trip.
Check out my tips for traveling with a baby and why it’s a fantastic idea here.
And finally, tips for traveling with two kids coming soon!
