Adventures in Flying with Toddlers

So, this Thanksgiving we were lucky enough to be able to fly down to Texas to visit my family and stay at my sister Audra's house in Dallas.  Evan had been talking about flying on an airplane to get to Texas for several weeks and kept asking us if it was time to go to the airport yet.  Finally, that time arrived.  Unfortunately, the boys were feeling a bit under the weather with pretty bad colds.  In fact, all of the congestion had been making Evan throw up for the past several days, so we were a bit wary about the whole thing.

When Ian got home from work, we headed to the airport.  First, Ian dropped us off-two kids, a stroller, two suitcases, and two car seats-at the airport so that we wouldn't have to haul all the luggage on the shuttle.  I hobbled very slowly over to the check-in counter and got everything checked in.  When Ian arrived, we put all our liquids in a clear bag, took off our shoes, and got ready to go through security.  It was nice, they saw us coming and ushered us into a less crowded line.  Boys did great going through security and we headed on our way.  We ate dinner at a fast food area and headed down to catch our plane.  Too easy, right?

Evan had a ball on the moving walkways getting down to our gate.  I went up to the counter and was trying to gate check my stroller as they started boarding when I heard my phone ring.  I answered it and it was US Airways calling to tell me that our second flight that day was cancelled due to mechanical issues.  I couldn't believe it!  So, I turned to the gate agent and asked what on earth we should do.  She set about finding us another way to get there, and while she was working the boarding of the plane continued until finally they shut the doors of the airplane and it left with us still sitting at the counter in the terminal.  At this point I was beginning to panic, and Evan was getting a bit disappointed when he began to figure out that we might not be getting on a flight after all.

Finally, the woman at the ticket counter rebooked us on a flight out at 6am the next morning on another airline.  That sounded great.  However, our car seats were happily on their way to Charlotte, so we had no way to get the kids home.  We had to head down to baggage and pick up two car seats from them to use.  As we were walking down the almost empty terminal on our way to get our loaner car seats, Evan was just bolting ahead of us onto the moving walkways, having a great time.  Then, he would occasionally stop, turn around to us with a certain look on his face.  We would have to run up and put him over the trash can so that he could throw up.  Poor baby!  Then he would continue running on down the terminal.  Sigh.  Ian and I just had to laugh at the situation by that point.

We got home, put the boys down late, and got a little sleep.  However, we were not feeling rested when the alarm went off at 3am for us to wake up and get to the airport for our next flight.  Even though we kept the boys in their PJ's, they were wide awake and ready to go at 3.  We made it to the airport for Thanksgiving take 2, and this time it went more smoothly, but needless to say we were ready to drop when we finally arrived in Texas.

We were so glad to make it and glad we had a much more relaxing Thanksgiving, but that's a tale for another day...