The day we were to travel for the holidays, I woke at 4 or 5 so I could take a shower before we had to leave. We woke so early that we actually had to wake the baby before she could wake us up with her usual 6 a.m. squawk.

We had decided to fly, because the idea of driving (for 10 – 12 hours) with a baby made me break out in hives.

We were supposed to leave the house at 6 a.m. At 6:10 a.m., I asked DH if he had the birth certificate we needed for the airline.

Nope. He had made copies, but he didn’t know where the copies were located. I continued nursing the baby while he ran around looking for them.

At 6:20 a.m. we finally leave the house.

Our flight was to leave at 8:15 a.m.

We decided to leave without the birth certificate and get going. Of course, the highway was clogged.

“This doesn’t look good,” says DH.

“No, it doesn’t.”

We continue to crawl at 5 mph on the highway. We get past the traffic jam and start moving at a real speed. Time ticks on.

At the airport, we have to park the car in Outer Mongolia and take a bus into the airport. We do this while carrying a car seat, a baby, three suitcases and two diaper bags.

At one point, my husband exclaimed at me carrying the baby on the front, my diaper bag on my back and wheeling a suitcase in each hand. I felt like I’d conquered the world.

Until we got in line and were immediately told there’s no way we’d make our flight.

Why?

Because of the looooong line to check in. Because we were late. When you have a lap baby, there is often no easy way to check in. Because I had to go through the special security line that blows air on your body to check for bomb dust. My 16-month-old does not know how to make bombs, but she had to have air blown on her, too.

(Note: Coming back from an unnamed airport in a smaller city, I was shocked that I NEVER had to provide photo ID.)

After we had definitely missed our flight, I felt so much less stressed! Wow, what a difference! While people ran past us to get to their flights, we could amble along knowing that we had already messed up and missed ours.

What a relief.

We ambled around. We let the baby walk to the security gate on her own with no worries of being on time.

We elected to try for standby. We were 2 and 3 on the list.

After 3 hours of waiting, we had sunk to 9-10 on the list. Those darned special United frequent flyer whatever people had gotten ahead of us.

We decided to rent a car and drive.

Our luggage had already gone ahead to Detroit, MI.

At one point, our car was in Virginia, we were on a highway in Pennsylvania, and our luggage was in Michigan.

After we got the rental car, I took my somwhat sheepish husband to out favorite Japanese sushi place. I knew that getting loaded up on sushi would make everything okay. Plus, there’s a fantastic toy store. I knew we would need toys — lots of them — to make it 10 hours in the car with the baboo.

I tore through the store throwing coloring books, crayons, soft books and bascially any toy that won’t hurt if thrown at my head into the cart. More than $100 later, we were set.

Ah, the holidays!

This will be my first trip away from the little one. My chest has gone tight at times. I’ve imagined every horrible scenario.

She’ll be in great hands — her daddy — and I’m probably going to miss her more than she misses me. Then why do I feel slightly worried?

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I read an excellent post on the Cynnical Dad blog. Since I won’t be here for the next two days, I’ll share this post with you so you have some good reading material. I won’t leave you high and dry!

My solution was to put the baby in a mei tai carrier, carry the 20-lb car seat in one hand (okay, I dragged it, too), carry a rolling suitcase in the other and strap the diaper bag across my chest. We stood in line for 1 to 1.5 hours. I could have gone through quick checkout if she’d had a ticket. It seems cruel to make parents wait in line with their newborns for so long, yet the very reason I was forced to use the in-person check-in system was because I had a child. It made no sense to me.

At first, I talked and sang with the Nugget. Another women (older with grandchildren) kindly helped me by singing to the baby and playing little pat-a-cake games her.

The baby had understandably had it after 90 minutes of going nowhere. No doubt she was also hungry, yet we could not spare a minute to stop and nurse, especially at the leisurely place the Nugget likes to eat.

I had no idea just how late the long wait had made me. As I made my way to the security checkpoint, I knew I’d have to stop and change a diaper. I had far too many items to carry to take into the bathroom, so I resorted to changing my baby in full view of everyone in the main hall of the airport. By that point, I was drenched with sweat from carrying 50 lbs of equipment, and my back was aching. Although I’d found a cart and was able to use it for a few hundred feet, I had to surrender it at securty.

To get through the checkpoint, I had to unstrap the whole mei tai, remove the baby, remove my shoes, place my heavy carseat in the machine, place the heavy suitcase in the machine, and walk through the sensors. I was relieved when they didn’t go off due to a forgotten watch or belt buckle.

Once on the other side, I had to restrap the mei tai, get the baby back inside it, put my shoes on, lace them up, get the suitcase off the conveyor belt, and hoist the car seat off the belt, too. Then, I had to catch the little train to get out to the gate. I had to do all of that with one hand, of course.
My back is still killing me, and I still have to wait for a train to get to the gate. I am thirsty, hot, and tired. The train gets me the concourse. I walk up to the gate, and the flight is already boarding. I barely made it and had not even known how close I was to getting ditched! Getting to the airport 2 hours early didn’t do much for me.

Once on the plane, I’m happy that there’s an extra seat where I can put the baby’s car seat even though I didn’t buy her a ticket. I’m relieved because I have no idea how I’d hold her in my lap for two hours and keep her from ripping the highlighter out of my seatmate’s hand, which she appears to want desperately. I managed to occupy the time with snacks, letting her peek over at the people behind us, and play with the few toys I could squish into the overtuffed diaper bag.
Once the plane lands, I carry the 50 lbs across another airport, onto a bus, off a bus, across burning-hot asphalt in the parking lot, and finally make it to the car where I quickly must learn how to install the car seat in the blazing 90-degree heat — all while continuing to hold the baby.

I felt proud of myself for being able to do all of this. At the same time, I swore never again!

Family vacations can definitely be easier.

Stay tuned and I’ll share some ideas for low stress vacations with your family.

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With 6 adults and 3 babies, the opportunity for chaos and the opportunity for finding peace and creativity admist the chaos was going to be a challenge. Life with children can be hectic. You wake up (when the child wakes, of course) and feed them, and then there’s nap 1, and then playing, and more feeding, and more playing, and then another nap sometimes and then dinner and then more playing. You are fortunate if you can find time to eat!

While my husband was playing with the baby, I went upstairs to our room and enjoyed a quiet moment or two all to myself. We had a balcony that looked over the river, a valley and the Shenandoah mountains. I felt fortunate to be on a trip with these wonderful people I’d met within the past year and to have found a cabin just 2 weeks before we planned to go on this trip. Everything was perfect. The cabin was enormous with three bedrooms and three bathrooms, a pool table, a piano, and a hot tub. I walked out onto the balcony and saw a slippery black thing in the pond out front. Was it a dog? Big foot?

It was a bear! I’d been wanting to see a bear and had even done a “bear dance” with the baby that very morning. I ran down the stairs and found my husband and told him to go outside FAST. He was able to see one of them as it disappeared into the woods. In that quiet moment, I took the time to look somewhere I would not normally look and found a great gift: a bear. Two bears actually.

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