If you want to feel like SUPERmom...

...take your kid(s) on an airplane, alone.

I'm not kidding.

If you've ever doubted your capacity for patience, your ingenuity, your absolute dominance when it comes to snack-packing, or that God is looking out for you and your little brood 24/7, pack your backpack full of snacks and dollar store toys and get on an airplane with your children and without your spouse.


And it's better if one of them has to sit on your lap for the entirety of your flight(s).

Can you see the dog resting on the tray table across the aisle?

It wasn't all smiles and happy faces. There was pouting, fussing, crying, the occasional raised voice, and sometimes just flat out whining (at least one from each of the three of us, though I will promise that I didn't cry, or ever even want to). But we did it. Twice.

Cross-country.

Six hours of flying (a 1.5 hour flight and a 4.5 hour flight) and innumerable amounts of just plain travel (driving to/from airports, hustling through the airport during layovers, checking bags, claiming bags, the whole shebang).

I packed coloring books, new dollar store toys, way too many snacks (I think I might be the one who gets the most cranky without appropriate snacks), diapers, wipes, hand sanitizer, chapstick (for me), a Kindle loaded with kid games and an iPod just for Gracie to watch Sesame Street on. Also Benadryl. In case Charlie had... plane allergies.

Maybe it is silly to pray about traveling with children--not for safety, only, but even more for sanity, peace, and patience--but we were watched over. We had the nicest flight attendants (one on the last flight even learned the kids names and spent time just playing with them, while another took one look at us during pre-boarding and handed us some pre-takeoff cookies).

A stranger offered to wait for our stroller to come up to the gate between flights during our layover in Detroit so I could take the kids in to the AC instead of waiting in that little tunnel by the plane (I used to know what it was called, but then I traveled alone with my two kids and I lost some brian cells).

I nodded to, smiled at, and/or conversed with several other mothers traveling alone. It was like we were in some club for crazy people.

There were some adventures. Like, I had to take Charlie to the bathroom with me on the plane, because I couldn't trust him not to climb into an overhead bin if I left him in his seat, and he had no socks and shoes because he'd taken them off, so I couldn't let him touch the floor (I mean I could have, but ewww). I'll let you figure out the logistics of how that worked. I am proud to say that I managed to get my zipper re-zipped AND wash my hands all while holding him. But it wasn't necessarily my favorite part of the trip.

Before each flight I let the kids out of the stroller to play "the running game." Which is where I tell them two points (usually a wall/door and a chair next to where I am sitting) and they have to run between them as many times as possible. No ulterior motive at all. They love the running, the smacking of each point, and how I count and cheer loudly for them while other passengers look on knowingly or with mild annoyance.

Charlie slept in my lap part of the way. Is there anything sweeter than your child falling asleep on you? I loved the smell of his hair and his soft cheek and how peaceful he looked dreaming. (And how he wasn't climbing on me or the armrest, playing with the tray table, pushing buttons on the TVs, opening and closing the window, or pinching/pulling my neck skin...) That was one of my favorite things. The little heartbeat, their own perfect breaths...

And Gracie was actually just a champ. Now that she can play with action figures (princesses, of course!) and watch TV on an iPod, she just thinks the airplane is one big party. She was fabulous, and an easy travel companion.

By the flight home (our 4th flight in the past month and a half) Charlie seemed to be getting the hang of the rules, and he was actually pretty happy most of the trip (with one nap, which he always hates. I just sit him on my lap and recite storybooks to him while he whines/fusses/gripes and then he eventually gives up and falls asleep).

I read a ton of preparedness tips for traveling with kids, but in the end I think it came down to:

1. Snacks and a few toys,
2. Praying sincerely, and being ready to accept either help or the challenge of doing it alone, and
3. Letting go. I just decided that whatever happened, we would deal with it as it came. We were never really alone--we had lots of people looking out for us everywhere we went--and it was okay.

And we had a fabulous time in California. And now I am exhausted and glad to be home. :)