Airline travel and Sanity

Wow, we made it to Ohio, safe, exhausted, and still somewhat sane. Well as sane as I ever will be or ever have been. The trip to get to my parents house, is long and can be a humongous nightmare depending on your "airline Karma". Mine on this trip I would say was a 7 out of 10, could be worse, could have been better. First of all I just want to say, Tom I love you but picking a flight that leaves out Of Minetta at 6:26 am. Probably not the ideal time frame with two small children. BUT.....I appreciate the effort. So yes, our flight left at 6:26 am and we had to be up at 4 am. I left the kids sleeping until we were ready to go and we jumped in the car dawning our most sylish jammies (well the kids did not me). So we get checked in and all is good so far, our flight is expected to depart on time. Now those of you who fly a lot, especially with kids, know that departing on time is an added bonus. As we walk towards the security check in we are thinking we can get some food and let the kids play at the play area before the daunting jaunt through security (me...alone, two kids, a stroller, our carry ons, and trying to force caitlin to walk through the metal detectors. HA HA....its no picnic). As we round the corcer we see a line that stretches almost down to the baggage area. We figure Tom should stand in line while I take Miss Bean to the restroom so we dont have to deal with any accidental emptying of bladder contents onto the floor or us. Its always good to avoid that whenever possible. By the time I get back from the bathroom Tom is almost up to the security point to go through the metal detectors. The link went fairly fast. So we had a quck good bye, and off through the metal detectors I went. It was fairly uneventful and easy, I think I've pretty well got a system set up. All non-essential kids stuff first, then deal with the stroller, take shoes off in advance because they always ask me to anyway, then the camera and the laptop. Those go last because i"m always afraid someone is just gonna leisurely walk away with it. So Caitlin as expected would NOT go through the metal detectors. She started to cry and really did look scared. The new security system is pretty overwhelming even to me, so imagine a 3.5 year old trying to make it through there. So they tell me to pick her up and walk through making sure not to touch the sides of the metal detectors because the alarm will go off. HA HA HA. Are you guys picturing this at all?? Me, a 3.5 year old in one arm a 14 month old in another, and they want me to make sure NOT to touch the sides. Of course of first attempt was complete failure and we had to try again, this time I'm holding the kids in my arms and hold their hands so they wont touch the sides. SUCCESS. Ok *sigh of relief* that was easy. Now it was time to load up all of our crap back onto the stroller and head off to the gate. I set caitlin down, still holding goo luckily they open the stroller for me. I figure I can wait to put my shoes back on when I get tot he gate. AS soon as I get there, we set down for about five minutes and then the guy lets us load up before anyone else !! WOOHOOO AND they helped me up the stairs with the car seat and the carryons. Of course we are stuck in the next to last row of the airplane. And goo immediately starts his ear deafening screams. And of course everyone seems to be getting huffy already. Must be the 6am departure time. So we made it just fine through this trip praying the entire time that the gate will be close to where we land....wishful thinking but it never hurts to say a lil prayer....Ok so I prayed the entire trip. But of course I had to walk from C concourse to B concourse (O'hare). I arrive sweaty, tired and hungry. So I forgot to mention that earlier in the morning I asked Tom to scramble up some eggs put them in a ziplock for me so I could give them to the kids on the airplane. His response?? "NO its ok we can buy some eggs at the airport". Now if you remember correctly we didnt' quite make it to have breakfast. Moral of the story, ignore your husband and go with your gut. :) So luckily there was a little sandwich stand next to our gate and I got a sandwich for us to share and some drinks. On our earlier flight our flight attends kept skipping us for drinks and snack boxes, I kept having to ask. Why ?? Who knows. So caitlin is running amuck around the gate seating area and I'm watching thinking "whatever it takes to survive she needs to get her legs moving. So finally I get her back because again, they let us board earlier than anyone else WOOHOO! This trip was a little rougher than the first. Caitlin decides while we are sitting and eating our sandwich in our seats to stick her leg out in the isle while people are walking by, kicking the mans seat in front of us, shes just being down right obnoxious. So I moved her to the middle seat and then she starts to annoy her brother and just all around being a little.....Now I hate to say it but theres no other word to describe it.....BRAT. Finally I raise my voice telling her to quick now that I'm not going to put up with anymore from her. And as I"m doing that, I realize its very quiet on the plane no ones talking. I end my Mommy talk and then at once like nothing happened everyone starts to talk again. It was the weirdest thing. So we make it to Columbus and all I can think of is, Mom better be waiting right at the gate. So we meet her at the gate she takes the kids to the pick up area where my dad is driving around for us, and I grab the bags and car seat and luckily they were all the first bags out. WOOHOO. Then we drove 2.5 hours home to my parents. The kids slept and we were all exhausted. Everyone slept well. To bad it didn't last.