Frankly, I’m too old for most of parenting. For horsey rides, chasing after tricycles, getting up and down off the floor. But 2 things lately have really made me feel like I’m just too old for all this: plane rides and preschool.
As for plane rides, we recently (and by “we”, I mean the 2 boys and I) flew to my parents’, taking 2 planes with a connection in Charlotte. Traveling with 2 active boys would wear out Bruce Jenner at his peak (before the whole Kardashian thing). Given, it could have been a whole lot worse — I had gotten some ingenious invention called a “Trunki” from the fabulous Melissa & Doug, which went a long way towards containment in the airports. It’s a child’s suitcase that you can pull, ride on, or push. Darwin loved it, and it made him feel like he was independent, but he was still attached. Of course, he pretended it was a train. But good heavens. Two boys, two carryon bags, one kid suitcase to pull, and one giant rolling suitcase to check. Plus trying to eat a meal somewhere on our layover, get diapers changed, and keep track of these two kids. To make matters worse, the airline had put us on different reservations, so Darwin was sitting in completely seats that Elijah and I were. I called before we left, and the reservation agent told me he could only help me with out last flight, Charlotte-Chicago. His “help” ended up putting us in adjacent seats, but on COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FLIGHTS. Not as helpful as one would hope. So, just when we thought we were out of the woods, about to board our last flight to get home, we were told we would have to talk to a different gate agent and try to find a vacant seat on an “completely full” flight. Luckily, airlines lie like a rug, and “completely full” means “except for the seats we’re saving for our airline employee friends.” So, we got on the flight, and the lovely woman who was supposed to be in seat 25F, next to the window, switched to 13B, in the middle squeezed between who knows who. I bought her a drink. On our fight out of Chicago, the gentleman beside us threw up in his airsick bag as soon as we started to taxi. Ah, I remember those days of flying with a hangover. Thinking that was the worst that flying could ever be. Ha ha. As I told him, he got lucky because, as a mother of 2, I’m not phased by pretty much any manner of bodily excretions.
Then, when we arrived in Chicago (again, silly me, thinking we were out of the woods — home at last!), I let my guard down. Immediately, Darwin sensed my weakness, and that plus hours of being cooped up on a plane came to a head, and he was off like a shot. Running through the airport, adults turning their heads, craning necks to see where the irresponsible parent was who was letting her kid run rampant through the hallways. He made random turns, ran into people, almost got run over by baggage cart. I’m sure calls to child and family services were made — if not when they saw him running unattended, then when they saw me struggling behind him, pushing a stroller, lugging two bags, pulling a blueberry plastic suitcase with green horns and saying (not so much under my breath) “fucking kids. Goddamnit. Fucking kids” over and over. When he was finally rounded up, we had to get to where Joe had parked the car, which involved getting to baggage claim and adding the giant rolling suitcase to our load, then finding “elevator center number 1.” Sounded promising, elevator center 1. Better than elevator center 473 or something. But of course, it was not. We exited the airport at elevator center 4. Elevator center 1 was at the other end of the building, and around a corner. So on we lugged. We almost made it by all the moving walkways (which we couldn’t ride because a) we had a stroller which isn’t allowed, and b) I don’t know that we’d fit, frankly). But the last one was just too tempting. Darwin darted away, and hopped on (of course going in the opposite direction), and luckily did what we all want to do every time we see one of those things — ran along it in the wrong direction and jumped off. It’s hard to be mad when he’s doing something that we all wish we could do. But it’s also hard to NOT be mad when you’ve been traveling for 11 hours and you are so. Close. To. Home. At least it was better than in Charlotte, where he got on the walkway going in the opposite direction, and a total stranger saw it and had to lift him up over the handrail and deposit him with me. We finally found the car, not without a fairly psychotic phone call to Joe (you should see the visual voicemail transcript) and frightening a few passers by. But we made it.
Lest you think that Darwin was the only troublemaker, Elijah had his fair share, too, but he’s just not big enough yet to really make trouble, and I can overpower him more easily. He’s also easier to distract with bright lights, as well as sleepier. So he did sleep a fair amount of the time on each plane ride (until on one flight, Darwin had to use the bathroom, and there is just no way I can help Darwin take off his pants, hold a sleeping baby, and not get pee everywhere in a little airline bathroom. Sigh), and he stayed strapped into his stroller in the airports taking everything in. Some squirming, some crying, but not as much as I had feared. The main issues with him were when containment was unavailable, like when we had to leave the stroller at gate check and when we picked it up. Then, unfolding the stroller, keeping track of Darwin, making sure the diaper bag didn’t spill out all over the tarmac, and not dropping on Elijah on his head were all challenges.
Darwin keeps asking when we’re going to fly on another plane. I tell him when he invents a time machine and we can do it when I’m 25 years old again. I’m just too old for this!
