Have kids, will travel

Well we are now safe and sound back in France.  It was an incredibly long and tiring trip back home just me and the kids but as promised, here's a recap of a mom's adventure with a toddler, a preschooler, two planes, a train, lots of tears and almost 20 hours of solo travel.

A dietitian mothers' best attempt of "healthy" airport food

My original idea was to take photos of the different stages on the continuum of boredom/exhaustion.  It started out well with a couple shots from the easy plane ride between Cleveland and JFK/New York. Piece of cake, right?





We end up in JFK with a couple of hours to spare.  Our flight was at 10pm so my idea was to feed the kids at the airport to be able to skip dinner service on the plane and get the kids down soon after taking off (wishful thinking right?).  Anyway, our dinner choices in the small terminal wing we were in were limited so I dodged the burgers and pizza and tried to stay as balanced as possible with some fruit, yogurt and ham and cheese sandwich.  I find a table in the corner where two increasingly tired kids might go unnoticed.  Right after I take the picture our our feast, Audrey looks and me and says, "Mama, I gotta pee".  You are kidding me, right??  Okay, no biggie.  I nicely ask the couple at the table next to me watch the food while I grab the kids (plus the stroller, and all of carry-ons!) into the bathroom.  We cram ourselves and all our stuff into the stall so the little one can empty her bladder.  Ten minutes later, we are back at the table.  Nice work, I tell myself...
this is going to be a cinch.  We finish off our food and

make our way to the gate.

I change Thomas into his pajamas since that'll help him realize its time to sleep (more wishful thinking...) and we board the plane.  We push back right about on time but there seems to be traffic on the ground.  I've got Thomas on my lap (since we didn't pay for a seat for him) and I feel something slightly wet on his bottom side.  After further examination it appears he's got a leaking issue and unfortunately its not pee.   You've got to be kidding me...(seems to be a theme at this point). So, I have now found myself on an active runway, unable to get up from my seat and a nasty case of diarrhea on my lap.  Thomas is not a happy camper at this point and after 45 minutes and having budged just a couple feet, I decide to take matters into my own hands.  I grab my diapers, and change him on my lap, disposing of the soiled pajamas in the same bag as the dirty diaper (along with all my expectations of an easy flight at this point).  Another pat on the back for myself, after drowning my hands in Purell, of course. So much for those sleep inducing pajamas though....

Last know picture of those pajamas 

We take off - finally!  And, well the pictures pretty much stop there.  Things slowly take a turn for the worst and snapping pictures of it is now the last thing on my mind.  Some 3 hours into the flight (so pretty much around 2am for the kids and me) I manage to get Thomas to sleep.  Half mission accomplished!  Audrey is still into the in-flight entertainment and I am hoping that she'll doze off to sleep in the process (yet more wishful thinking).  Ten minutes into him falling asleep in my arms, it's deja vu - "Mama, I gotta pee".  You have really got to be kidding me now!  Okay, breathe...we can do this.  I take Thomas who is sound asleep in my arms and I usher Audrey to the bathroom.  It's pretty much the point in the flight where everyone is asleep.   I look around for a flight attendant but I don't see anyone.  Just as I am at the bathroom door with no clue of how to make this work, another passenger meets me at the door and asks if she can help.  I thank her profusely and hand her a soundly sleeping Thomas.  Another almost impossible pee mission accomplished! Again, I have to feel pretty proud of myself.  Not to shabby!


That's where it all unravels.  We make it back to our seats with a recently peed (though EXHAUSTED) Audrey and a still sleeping Thomas.  I went to adjust Audrey's pillow and she just lost it.  She jumps out of her seat and starts screaming at the top of her lungs.  This subsequently wakes Thomas up who is now screaming at the same intensity.  All this with the rest of the plane trying to sleep.  Seats 24 E and F are now where eyes start turning and I suddenly and completely overwhelmed.  I have two over-exhausted kids who both need ME to get settled but I just can't do it simultaneously.  I am overcome with a feeling of helplessness and am sort of frozen with fear.  We are making quite a scene at this point and have attracted some attention.  One of the male flight attendants comes by and tosses two Air France in-flight children's actives packs at me (because obviously some colored pencils and a few stickers are exactly what I need to get the kids to stop screaming).  I then see another man coming to me.  He starts to speak to me in French in an overly confident voice - "I am a medical doctor and I have perfected a technique that can make all babies stop crying. Hand me your baby."  This is a TOTAL true story, I kid you not. At this point, I hand Thomas over, being at a complete loss for anything else to do.  The man takes Thomas high up on his left shoulder and starts a strange bouncing motion.  As is no surprise to anyone reading this - IT DID NOT WORK!  Thomas' screams have only intensified a couple notches and he is now in total hysteria.  The guy looks at me and says in a exasperated tone - "Well it must be his ears then since my technique works on all children".  He hands me Thomas and the baby whisperer heads back toward his seat, a bit defeated.

I have no recollection of how I did it but I was finally able to manage to get both kids asleep some 20 minutes later.  For a good hour, I had Thomas asleep in my arms, and Audrey sleeping soundly on the seat next to me.  I have to say that one hour of calm was enough to make up for all the rest up until then.  It was an incredible feeling to say the least.  They both ended up waking up about and hour and a half before landing in Paris.  As they were serving a final snack before landing, Thomas suddenly gets a bloody nose and blood is everywhere.  Although he has gotten them in the past, this one was hard to stop so by the time it was over, it literally looks like we came out of a war scene.  Strangely, knowing that we were so close to being done with the longest flight, I took in in strides and made the best of it.  We landed a bit later and I breathed a sigh of relief.  We were still a couple hour train ride from home but I now felt like the hard part was over.

We barely made our train connection but once we were on, I knew we were in the home stretch.  It was so much nicer to be able to move around on the train and spread out a bit (ironically I think they did both end up enjoying the Air France children activity kits).  Needless to say, the kids were exhausted when we arrived at the train station in Strasbourg - but we had done it. Not a pretty sight at times but I was able to safely get the kids from Cleveland to Strasbourg France in one piece (although there was some blood shed).  I can guarantee you that I will not be embarking on a similar adventure any time soon.  And to that baby whisperer out there - keep working on that technique ; )          

 

Thomas - sound asleep just minutes after arriving home!