An Uncomplicated Life Blog: What It's Like Traveling With Two Kids Two and Under

Thursday, July 21, 2016

What It's Like Traveling With Two Kids Two and Under

Think flying or traveling with young children is a good idea? Think again.


The second week of June, we packed everyone up for a four day weekend in Maine, for my sister's wedding. Henry was the only "official" member of the wedding party as the ring bearer. We got a direct flight to Boston, then had a 2.5 hour drive up to rural Maine (ummm, all of Maine is pretty rural...) to get to the estate the wedding would be held at. Let me tell you, friends, that was the first and last time we will ever embark on a flight/long drive combo with two kids this young. It was pure hell. PURE HELL. Read on for the funny details on what it's like traveling with two kids two and under!

Traveling with children is hard, but when you have more than one baby, it's extra challenging!

First, just packing everything is intense. When you only have one kid, it's fairly manageable, but making sure I had two outfits for each day plus spares plus jammies plus sleep sacks plus spare sleep sacks if someone wet through their diaper at night... Whoa. I was typical Paige and made a list and checked things off as I went. Which was a great strategy! One I should have done for myself because I completely forgot to pack any panties and my wedding day jewelry. Oops.

We get to Dallas Love Field (yay for city airports! DFW is a haul and a completely miserable place) and realize we have too many kids and too many bags. So hubs strapped Otto onto his back, wore a man-diaper bag and pushed two suitcases. I had my purse (with my breast pump and parts), another diaper bag, the stroller with Henry in it, and my suitcase. We were like a walking clown show. I'm pretty sure I pulled a muscle in my back and had pit stains just from walking from the parking garage to the bag check line.

We check the bags, get through security in about 4 minutes thanks to my husband's insane travel status, and go to the play area in Love Field. Thanks to the engineers who built that area. They were thinking! All seemed like it was going well and this would be a breeze.

Henry behaved himself for the first three hours of the flight. That last half hour? You've never heard anyone scream louder. He didn't want to put on his seat belt to land. He was done sitting. He had missed his nap by about two hours. It was game over for him, and game over for us. Finally, we get off the jail cell plane, but Henry continues to lose his sh*t. It was a real treat to have everyone stare at us while my toddler rolled on the floor screaming as we waited for our gate checked stroller.

We get our bags and in Boston, you have to ride an effing BUS to get to different terminals and the car rental. Remember, we have two parents... And two children, three small bags and three suitcases, plus a stroller. Nobody offered to help us on or off this bus. I'm pretty sure I hit a man as I wildly chucked suitcases on, not caring where they landed - only hoping I got them all before this stupid bus took off! Serves that dude right for not offering to help. Actually, I'll stop lying. I aimed the biggest suitcase right for his knee caps. Jerk.

At least he's cute, because he's definitely stressful to travel with!

The only good news was Henry had collected himself by this time. The bad news was that he fell asleep so I had to carry his 30 pound body (plus three bags and a stroller) on and off this stupid effing bus. No, I didn't chuck my toddler like I did the suitcases, although that would have made the whole process a lot faster.

We get to our rental where our SUV is waiting right in front for us (perks of a traveling husband) but the car seats aren't installed (liability on their part, totally get it). However, these aren't our car seats nor do they come with instructions. So we spend about a half hour trying to get these car seats in place. Neither of us has eaten in about eight hours by this point, because when you have two kids, one stroller, three small bags and three suitcases, aint nobody got a spare hand to eat a sandwich.

Finally, we're en route! I pull out my pump and plug it into the car with the genius device my husband ordered me. We look at each other like, well, if that was the worst of it, we're good! And then. We hit Boston traffic. Like, move every 3-4 minutes kind of traffic. If you have kids, you already know - they want that car moving. Or they cry/scream. So we listen to our toddler whine for over an hour and the baby cry for about 20 minutes (he passed out early, thank God.) We still haven't eaten.

Once we were out of the city, we grabbed some Panera drive thru because Praise Jesus, the children fell the eff to sleep and alleluia, there was a drive thru that wasn't fast food. But I tell you something, Panera is some really sub-par food, isn't it? Like, where's the flavor? Tasted like gas station food... But I was so hungry, my give-a-eff meter wasn't even operating.

Yes son, you were on one of those planes you're pointing at and you did NOT behave

Finally, we get to the house we rented. My folks were supposed to be there, pre-stocking it with food and diapers for our arrival. It was the kids bedtime when we arrived, Henry was hungry, and hubs and I were ready to drink a bottle of wine each. Except... There was nobody there. The house was dark. Hubs called my stepdad and I called my mom, like HELLO??? WHERE ARE YOU? WE'VE BEEN TRAVELING FOR 12 HOURS WITH BABIES AND WE WANT TO DIE PLEASE TELL ME YOU'RE HERE TO SAVE US! They weren't. Turns out there was a medical emergency with the mother of the groom and they didn't make it to the house to have it ready for us. I wanted to burst into tears, slam my head into a wall and drown myself in the lake the home was on all at the same time. We had two hungry boys with no way to feed them, a low supply of diapers, and it was cold AF in Maine. Awesome.

We broke in found the key to the house, got some bottles washed for Otto and fed Henry a supper of crackers. My stepdad showed up with the pack n play for Otto so we were able to get them to bed. Then we drank wine, started off into space at the lake, and twitched at how horrible and long that day had been.

If we thought that was bad, we should have just waited for the trip home. Fast forward to leaving day:

Henry developed diarrhea. Otto had questionable stools. Both boys were going through about 6 times the number of diapers they normally do. So I packed our diaper bags with plenty of wipes and diapers. We load up. Get driving on the small rural Maine roads and the kids fall asleep. Hubs and I had a pleasant conversation on the dysfunction of my family. We had four and a half hours to make the 2.5 hour trip, so we thought about stopping for lunch to let Henry play somewhere. Once we got onto I-95 (all my east coasters know the misery of this interstate) we came to a dead stop. An electronic sign said there was a wreck at mile 36. We were at mile 42. Dead. Stopped. The kids felt the car stop moving and promptly started screaming.

Uh-oh, I was naughty and screamed!

We were stopped on that freeway for an hour and a half. With screaming babies. The. Entire. Time.

Meanwhile, we're watching the GPS update our arrival time in Boston. It's getting closer and closer to our takeoff time. I look at hubs and ask, "Are we on the last flight to Dallas?" "Yup." he replies.

Excellent.

Finally the traffic gets moving again. I tell hubs to drive like a Texan so we can make this flight. If you don't know what that means/you've never been to Texas, it means to go about 25mph over posted speeds and tailgate the hell out of a$$holes who think the left lane is for driving and not passing. Oh, I can hear you judging! "You drove like that with kids in the car?!" Sure did. A) we're pros at this by now and B) you tell me what the eff we were supposed to do with two kids, no diapers and diarrhea and no cribs if we got stuck in Boston?! Judge on judgers. But that was a hell I wasn't going to make become a reality.

We made it to Boston JUST in time. We hauled a$$ to our gate. We got the babies changed! I picked up some food for us to eat on the flight! Everything was on time! "Phew!" we thought the worst is behind us. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA NOPE.

It was about an hour or so into the flight. I'm holding Otto, trying to coo him to sleep. Hubs is entertaining Henry, who has his own seat now that he's two. All of a sudden, hubs looks at me and says, "oh sh*t, he just threw up!" "What?!" I ask. I had just gotten Otto to pass out. I look over and there is vomit EVERYWHERE. And it's real vomit too - not baby vomit. Real, adult-level spew. Everywhere. He had turned to the window to puke. It dripped down the wall and got on other people's things too.

Yup.

A flight attendant brought us some paper towels and cleaner. The woman behind us was so kind and helped us clean things up. She said she had a 4 year old who did the same thing, but did it when they were landing so it couldn't get cleaned up for a half hour. That would have been a real treat!

I may have screamed, but I didn't puke like big brother!

The remainder of the flight was spent riding out horrible turbulence, catching a two year old's on-and-off vomit in a plastic bag and changing diarrhea diapers. That is, when we could get out of our seats, because they kept having everyone sit down due to the turbulence. I'll tell you what though, that flight attendant was a saint. She kept giving us new vomit bags for Henry, and brought me wine and hubs beer. But she didn't just serve it to me - she put a lid on it with a straw so that it wouldn't spill with the turbulence. She was a mom who understood what we were dealing with and said, "Here. You need this. It's on the house."

Finally we landed in Dallas to an insanely crowded airport. I guess huge storms had rolled through (thus the turbulence) and most flights were on a significant delay. It was 10pm. I think our flight attendant must have signaled to our captain like look bro, you gotta land this flight because I have two parents who are about 36 seconds from losing their sh*t in aisle 5 and I'm running out of alcohol to pacify them with!

So, you know. It *could* have been worse. We could have been stuck circling Dallas for hours or we could have been re-routed to another city. I would have definitely lost it then! But those pro's at Southwest Airlines are effing champs. I remember they kept my hubs' flight on time when we had a hurricane and I was on the brink of insanity after having two kids by myself for a week. They rose to the challenge and landed that plane in a hurricane to get hubs home to help me and they rose to the challenge and landed that plane during a hail storm to get two half-insane parents home with their sick kid. Cheers to you and your excellent staff, Southwest.

That, dear friends, is what it's like traveling with two kids two and under. Lots of cries. Lots of poop. Lots of vomit. A few tantrums and a screaming baby or two. After we got back to our home, hubs and I looked at each other and said, "NEVER AGAIN OMG THAT WAS THE WORST EVER." But hey, my sister was a beautiful bride!

11 comments:

  1. I have anxiety for you just reading this story. For such little human beings they do require so much lol. I'm glad you didn't miss your flight but damn the puke at the end just really topped off this story.

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  2. Oh girl. I can't even. I remember when A was 2 and it was her first flight in her own seat. She wanted to sit on my lap but they wouldn't let her. So the lady next to us tried to help me hold her down and buckle her in while she screamed like a pterodactyl for 45 minutes and then peed her pants all over the seat. I thought they were going to kick us off the flight. But you definitely had it 1000 times worse. I can imagine you are cringing at the thought of having to travel with them again anytime soon.

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  3. omg this was the best thing I've read in months! Laughed so hard because you're a hilarious storyteller. I could NOT imagine going through that though. Seriously, I am stressed just thinking about the whole thing.

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  4. 95 is a BEAR! We always try to avoid it and take 93 in, but that can be a bit of a nightmare, too. Boston traffic is always insane, my mom and I fought it weekly for a year when I was sick and had to go get my chemo at Boston Children's!

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  5. Omg! Unbelievable! This is a trip you will never forget but wish you could.

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