We just had, by far, the worst kid travel experience we have ever had. Lucky for you all! When we left my parent’s house we actually made good time with our shuttle to the airport and got to the gate with no issues and with plenty of time to spare. We had passed a Starbucks on the way to our gate and Alex had asked to stop, but I begged him to wait until we at least put our bags down at our gate and then he could go back on his own. Once we had acquired a seat, Alex headed back to get a venti iced mocha soy frappe caramel macchiato. Or something equally complicated. The kids were being good and keeping to themselves playing Hide and Seek in a rather quarantined area. I am fully aware that all of my children are not golden angels. However, they genuinely were being pretty good. They played for awhile and eventually Scarlett told me that she had to go to the bathroom. Like now. I could see by the look on her face that she had likely already begun. However, I knew that there was no way that I could cart four young children and five carry-on bags to a bathroom on my own without someone dying. I had no choice but to wait for Alex. But he didn’t seem to be returning. We waited long enough that each of my kids had another birthday before he returned. All the time knowing full well that she was likely mid-soil. Eventually I couldn’t just sit and wait anymore. So I stood. And I waited. Craning my neck to try to see him down the terminal. The other kids were starting to get bored with playing Hide and Seek so I suggested that they race each other from pole to pole. It was a short distance and relatively out of the way. Since we were flying during nap time I thought this might be a good way to tucker them out. The two poles were about 15 feet away from each other and largely out of the way from travelers. I was doing everything I could to keep a lid on it while I was praying that my daughter didn’t fill her britches two minutes before we boarded the plane. We had about four wet wipes left in our diaper bag. And who knew if we had extra undies. Finally, I saw Alex coming. No exaggeration I think he was gone for over twenty minutes. (Or an eternity in airport time.) Unintentionally leaving me as a single mother with all four kids. The line was very long at Starbucks and there wasn’t much he could do. To say I was stressed, however, is a bit of an understatement. Elle and Rose ran between the two poles exactly one time. It was at this point that a sixty-something-year-old woman walked up to me and decided to tear me a new one. It was so bad I actually thought she was joking at first. It wasn’t until she got to the fourth or fifth sentence that I realize she was completely serious. She unleashed. Telling me about all of the horrible parenting decisions I was making by allowing my children to run, ONE TIME, between two poles. Which I had told them to do! It was so bad that Alex’s jaw dropped open – assuming he had missed some interaction between us while he was gone. She told me, in a nutshell, what a terrible mother I was and made sure to point out that she had traveled with children previously so she knew what it was like. She then pointed to a different area that was actually more populated, but less in her way, and told me she couldn’t believe I didn’t have my children playing over there and running in that area. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Sarah was so stressed out she probably wasn’t paying attention and her kids have probably gotten rowdy. And I will be the first to admit that I know my children can be rowdy from time to time. This was not one of those times! If this woman came over to my house on a random Tuesday and yelled this at me I’d probably just agree with her. But in this case she was very much in the wrong. Elle and Rose got so sad as this woman was chewing them out. They did not understand at all what was going on. They were well within the limits of well-behaved airport children. She chewed me out for so long, and in such away, that I actually had tears in my eyes after she left. And I am not a crier. At the point of her tearing into me I was a seemingly single mother dealing with a seven, five, three, and one year old alone with five bags in an airport. All things considered I think I was doing pretty darn well. But boy, one interaction like that is all it takes to make you question every parenting decision you’ve ever made in your entire life. Alex spent the next 5 minutes doing damage control handing me his entire Starbucks drink and watching me down the entire thing. I thank God for the very kind gentleman that walked up to me after witnessing the whole escapade to tell me that my kids were absolutely not out of line at all and I was doing a fine job. I thanked him profusely as I drooled caramel macchiato through my tears. I was nearly choking back sobs as we boarded the plane. And it was only a few moments after we were all seated that I saw this same woman in the front of the plane stand, face the entire plane full of people, and reach down the collar of her shirt stretching it all the way down in order to adjust her bra (or get something out of it, I’m honestly not sure) thereby exposing herself to the entire plane. It was at this point that I realized perhaps the problem wasn’t entirely with me as this woman clearly had a few self-awareness issues of her own to deal with. Grant and Scarlett were beyond exhausted at this point as it was well past nap time. And it wasn’t until everybody had completely boarded that the crew realized they had a technical issue that was going to cause us a delay. We had to sit on that plane for a half hour extra before they even started taxiing. As if things weren’t bad enough. Naturally my five-year-old, who was sitting across the aisle, unbuckled and walked over to me to ask me a question at one point. The flight attendant immediately jumped on this and actually got on the intercom to say that the one person out of their seat was going to cause a further delay. (Translation: We don’t want to take credit for our late departure, so we’re getting on the intercom to blame it on the 5 year old in the back that was out of their seat for 4.5 seconds.) If I wasn’t questioning my parenting abilities already, having a flight attendant literally make an announcement over the intercom to the entire plane of hundreds of people about your child specifically will really seal the deal. This basically ensured that everybody on the plane hated us. But if they didn’t hate us before that announcement, they were certainly going to hate us once they realized how ornery my youngest two were going to be in the air. While booking a nap time flight we also should have considered the fact that our kids will not sleep anywhere but their own beds during nap time. It was Cry. City. Alex and I did the Kid Shuffle more times than we can count. We would both do a stint in battle, and then right before we snapped we would trade it off to the other one. I think it’s safe to say that we will not be exchanging Christmas cards with any of the other passengers on that flight. Grant had downed two of the three bottles we brought before we even took off. There was a point that Scarlett was crying so bad about spilling food that I actually licked cheese off of a blanket. And I hate cheese. These were desperate times. It was during one of Grant’s calmer stretches that he leaned over and threw up. Thank God his hooded zip up sweatshirt was big enough that he threw up directly into the inside of it. Most people that have to deal with a vomiting child would have that as the crowning low point of their flight. This hardly even registered on our radar. And if you think that those air plane bathrooms are tiny, you should try getting inside one with a three-year-old that can’t decide if she actually has to go or not. Which happened twice. And of course one of those two times I had to go. Which meant I was locked in there trying to go to the bathroom with a three-year-old. She basically had to sit on my lap. Super cool. Naturally this was during a turbulent part of the flight. You’ll see from the below picture that I basically gave up trying to parent Grant in anyway whatsoever. If he wasn’t crying, I wasn’t going to bother him. He pulled about 14 cords out of my carry on and put them around him like scarves. Super safe on a turbulent plane. He was the Mr. T of electrical devices. If you happened to be at the Grand Rapids airport last night and you’re wondering which person I was, I was the woman kissing the ground in the baggage claim area. I will never leave Michigan again. Or fly during nap time. Or with that woman.
The real moral of the story here is that when you see what seemingly appears to be a single mother with four young children potentially struggling, you want to be more like the couple we met before we boarded as we departed from Grand Rapids a week ago. They befriended us and got to know Alex and I and each one of our children. Even giving them a pack of gum. (Still sealed! Don’t judge me!) They then sat with us on the plane and helped us on our flight. Be like that couple. There are two ways to handle that pre-flight four-excited-kids situation. Be like that first couple. Choose to shine more light. And also, don’t dig around in your bra in front of an entire airplane full of people. So two morals really.
And we also owe an enormous thank you to my parents for allowing us to stay with them for a week in order to experience the joys of Florida sunshine. Thank you thank you thank you!
World's Okayest Parenting 