We’re bah-aaack. (Have been for a while now. Oops.)
We made it - and without much drama, from the children anyway. I can absolutely do the fly-by-myself-with-two-kids thing again.
It did suck that when we got to the airport and tried to check in our tickets had been canceled, but fortunately Aaron’s dad got us on the overbooked flight. Bless that man.
I wish you could have seen my trying to get through security with two squirrelly kids, a stroller, and two carry on bags - one with a laptop that I forgot to remove, not to mention the removal of three pairs of shoes, liquids, and the sneaking in of Starbucks in sippy cups.
I have to say, for as much as people complain about TSA, they certainly were nice to me. And so was everyone else. Some woman helped me get my luggage up on the security belt, and people were talking to the kids to keep them occupied so that Elena wouldn’t run away from me. Liam also did a good job of keeping her in check with his arms wrapped around her neck. Fortunately that was the most stressful part of the trip…everything else was just annoying.
We got into Chicago early, but our flight out was delayed an hour and a half. I walked all over that airport with my rolling bag attached to the stroller and my 50 pound backpack creating sweat marks where the straps came across my front.
Liam and Elena both fell asleep in the stroller while I was pushing it and of course woke up as soon as I stopped, but I had to slow down so that I could hear what the announcement was. Basically they were looking for people to take the first flight out the next day. I didn’t even bother talking to them about it until I heard them call for three more people. Thank goodness by the time I got up there they just needed two more, so it wasn’t even an option. Whew!
I have to say, the kids did great on the flight. Liam made friends with his seat mates, and we all three slept. I didn’t even pull out the DVD players!
So, that said, our next trip is planned for October 24-November 9 (Aaron will come back earlier.), and our first trip in 2009 is planned for January 15th-ish through Feb 6th-ish. I will be flying both ways alone with the kids.
“Alone with the kids….” Ha. Such an appropriate statement. I can’t even express how happy I was to see Aaron waiting for us when we arrived - with bagels and water, no less!
And now I must go and try to catch up a bit with pictures from our trip. It was crazy, but fun.
