Teleporting been invented yet?

I must apologize to fellow parents everywhere.  Before I was married and had kids, I was one of those people who believed that kids who could scream and cry at a specific decibel should not travel period (except for emergency purposes).  Kids. Stay. Home.  Ahhhh....how karma has a lovely way of biting me in the butt.  After two flights with two kids and noticeably pregnant, I think I can be officially labeled as "that mother"...to be followed by the stink eye.

When I first decided to take a solo trip (read: without Bjorn) with just the kids and me, I thought that it really couldn't be that bad.  After all, I could strap Haakon in the sit-n-stroll and Audriana could push him or hold my hand as we walked to the gate.  Plus, my friend, Kelly, has done it lots of time with her two boys and pregnant from Florida to Iowa.  And to knock this superior logical reasoning out of the ball park, I would book both flights during the kids' bedtime.  They will sleep.  I will sleep.  It will be perfect.

Ahhh...but with most of my reasoning while pregnant, I always forget that things are always a little bit too romanticized.  Let me start by saying while the trip to and from was less than stellar, the actual stay in Minnesota was fabulous.  The weather, although cold, was still very tolerable for my blood (perhaps it had to do with the fact that I am now a free-standing, walking, talking furnace...).  The kids handled the weather great and we were able to take LOTS of field trips through the time and generosity of Grandparents (especially Grandpa Byron).

We got to make multiple visits to the Minnesota Children's Museum (if any of you live in the Twin Cities, have children and have yet to make a visit...RUN there!  It is worth every penny and all the time you can spend with your kids in the exhibits.  The facility is beautiful and the staff are great.)  We made a trip to the Minnesota Zoo (no Como Zoo for us...too chilly!). Audriana got to hop on a choo-choo and see the bears sleep.  Unfortunately, both kids fell asleep by the time we hit the dolphins and marine life exhibit at the zoo.  The kids also got to meet some of Mommy's high school friends and their kids, and play at the community center's play structure (think McDonaldland on steroids!).  But the most important aspect of our trip home was that the kids got to spend lots and lots of time with both sets of grandparents (and help Grandpa Tong celebrate his birthday as well!).  It was nice to have two weeks of winter fun!

So by now, you are probably wondering how and where things went wrong en route to this magical land in Minnesota.  Well, all appeared perfect when we got to the Jax Aiport.  Bjorn was able to get a special pass to walk us to our gate, walk with Audriana, and our friend, Matt (Kelly's husband) was also on the flight (but the lucky duck got to sit in First Class!).  Then came the news:  the captain of the flight came on the intercom and told us that there were severe thunderstorms in the Georgia area that they were trying to fly around and needed control tower to approve the new flight plan.  He assured us that we would only be waiting 10 minutes, at most, for the paperwork to go through.  FORTY minutes later, we were again assured that it would only take 5 minutes longer for the fax to go through and THEN we would push back from the gate.

Finally, after 50 minutes of waiting in a plane with two small children who absolutely refused to be anywhere greater than a finger's length distance away from Mommy (and remember, kids under two have SUPER SHORT fingers!), we finally pushed back from the gate.  At this point, Audriana (who had her own seat), was desperate to see out the window.  Since she is so tiny, she managed to slip in and out of her seat belt quite easily (this was after I made the last minute decision to ditch the sit-and-stroll...you know, the stroller that is not only a car seat and stroller, but approved for flights as well.  Totally JV move on my part).  I had already gone through most of my stash of stickers during the 50 minute wait and I was hesitant to bust out the markers and color crayons so early in the trip.  And then came the scream.  Screw it.  "Look Audriana...ooooh, look at these markers and crayons!"  And by the good grace of God and sheer physical strength to hold down Audriana from standing as we were taxiing, with Haakon on my lap, we started accelerating and took off.  Both kids loved it and gave me no hints that it bothered their ears as we were reaching altitude.

By this point, Dash-3 has been happily bouncing up and down like a Cirque du Soleil acrobat on my bladder.  But getting up to go to the restroom was out of the question (sanity vs. peeing my pants?  I'll take a generous helping of sanity).  Haakon was happily resting his cheek on my chest and hugging my belly.  Audriana coloring.  And no one was crying.  Then came the beverage cart.  The best part of the flight was officially over.

Audriana was yelling for the beverage cart to come to her so that she could have a cup with ice.  We were lucky enough to be sitting in the second to very last row [voice dripping with sarcasm] while the flight attendant began her service at the front of the plane.   Thirty minutes later, she finally reached us and Audriana got her cup of ice with apple juice.  Haakon also decided that he needed his own.  So two cups of juice on the tray in front of my 2-year old daughter and we hit turbulence.  Ding! Ding!  Seat belt light goes on and I will give you one guess as to who believes herself to be above not only the captain of the plane but the FAA as well.  Audriana!  How did you know?

At this point Haakon refused to be taken off my lap.  If we were not sharing the same recirculated air space, then Haakon screamed bloody murder.  Oh, he's not able to touch my skin with his finger tips with absolutely minimal effort?  Bloody. Murder.  But at his point, my desire to NOT be reprimanded by the flight attendant for lack of control over my children (while obviously growing another one!) suddenly made me deaf and dumb to Haakon's cries of protest and the consideration of other passengers.  So while Haakon screamed, I physically held Audriana in her seatbelt until the turbulence was over.  My poor mother, who had specifically flown down to Jax to help on my flight up was completely helpless to her grandchildren's show.

It was not until 30 minutes before we landed did the kids finally settle down and fall asleep.  We were the first ones on the plane and the last ones off the plane on our flight to Minnesota.  By this time, we were well past their bedtime and I was exhausted.  Thank goodness we had two weeks to rest up for the next flight.

Normally, I would proceed to tell you about the flight back home, but I don't think I am quite yet ready to relive the trauma of that plane ride.  But let me just say that NO ONE got to sleep on that flight (not the kids, not fellow passengers, not the flight attendants and certainly not me or Grandpa Tong) and if I thought the level of stink eye was bad on the flight from Jax, it was nothing compared to the flight to Jax.   Fortunately, I have rationalized that that is the risk that people take when traveling on commercial flights.  Until teleporting becomes available, we might be sitting tight in our little home for a while longer.

Man, I wish karma had been a bit kinder on me with this one....  Pictures of our trip to come!