Navigating Air Travel After A Snowstorm with Two Small Children

In yesterday's post, I alluded to the ill-fated nature of our trip back east.  It was actually a really great trip except for the last two days.

We were all set to fly home from the DC area on Saturday morning, but on Friday afternoon, as the mother of all snowstorms moved toward DC, the flight was canceled.  We were fortunate enough to learn this before the snow even started falling (always subscribe to flight alerts!), so were able to reschedule for Sunday afternoon before all of the seats on that flight were filled.

This is what we woke up to on Saturday morning.  And it kept on snowing.  Total accumulation broke the record for a twenty-four hour period.

We spent Saturday shoveling out my mother-in-law's driveway so we could get to the airport on Sunday.  The kids had a very good time throwing themselves into snow banks.

On Sunday morning, I brazenly packed a cooler with nine juice boxes, 4 chocolate milks, two sandwiches and snacks.  It was the height of arrogance to think I'd get through security with all of that, but I was determined to try.  I knew we were in for a long haul.  My carry-on also contained 16 diapers, a complete package of wipes, a complete change of clothing for both kids, a bottle of hand sanitizer, my laptop with a lot of kids' shows, and an ipod with a movie my older son picked out for himself and was very excited to watch.  Both boys had small backpacks with toys that they'd packed themselves.  I didn't bother packing any amusement for myself since all of my focus would be on my kids.

As we pulled up to Reagan National Airport on Sunday afternoon, 3 hours before our flight was scheduled to depart, the line at curbside check-in was extremely long - and it was 24 degrees.  My husband left me with all of the luggage and took the kids to return the rental car.  I commandeered a luggage cart and decided to try to get in line inside.  I plunged into a wall of people in total chaos.  It took me 15 minutes to turn around and get back out the door.  By that time, the curbside check-in line was a lot longer, but I had no other logical option.  So I dug my winter coat out of my bag and hunkered down.  Forty-five minutes later, my husband and kids joined me.  An hour and a quarter later, through several bathroom breaks and snacks for the kids, we finally found a Skycap who gave us our boarding passes and took our bags, effectively cutting in front of the 15 passengers still in front of us.  We had 30 minutes to make our flight.

We got down to security and faced another log jam.  My husband hopped lines, cutting in front of some slow pokes, and I sheepishly followed him with the kids.  The security personnel saw the cooler with juice boxes and let us through with it, thank goodness.  Finally at our gate, we didn't see our flight on the board above the gate and we couldn't get a straight answer from anyone.  Utter chaos.

I resorted to standing on a chair and loudly asking if anyone else was on our flight and what they knew about it.  Five people spoke up and we exchanged whatever information we had.  We concluded that this was indeed the proper gate but there were several planes ahead of us.  We would be delayed.  So I set about finding dinner for the kids and found a table and two chairs that we turned into our base camp.  Four hours later, after dinner, bathroom breaks, purchasing one toy for each child at the gift shop, and many "tours" with the toddler, I saw some commotion near the gate and my husband investigated.  Sure enough, our flight was boarding.  In fact, it had been boarding for 20 minutes and we almost missed it.

We got to the front of the line and discovered that we did not have actual seat assignments.  We had generic boarding passes.  Good GOD.  So husband muscled his way through the shouting mob to the desk.  That's when they told him they'd been paging us for 10 minutes.  As if anyone could hear anything over the din.

We boarded the plane and found it completely full.  Our seats weren't together but we were at least able to pair one child with each adult.  I passed the ipod to my husband so my older son could watch his specially selected movie and the toddler and I settled in (we'd been using that movie as a carrot for good behavior the whole afternoon - it had worked like a charm).   Thank goodness for the CARES harness or my toddler would have been running down the aisle. 

Everyone on the plane was so grateful to be there and was very nice to each other.  Booze was free (which tells you just how bad things were!).  It was late, and I expected my toddler to fall asleep but he didn't.  After reaching cruising altitude, I broke out the last of the juice boxes and some raisins and he watched a Care Bears movie on my laptop while I rubbed his little feet.

Two hours into the flight, he became increasingly irritable.  He said his tummy hurt.  (Uh oh.  The older child had thrown up on the flight east after saying his tummy hurt.  An air bubble wanted to get out and it took his lunch with it.)  So I extracted him from his harness, laid him belly-down and told him to fart.  Yes, I really did.  I had no idea a toddler could produce so much gas.  But I'm guessing if the passengers around us could have chosen between a crying toddler and a smelly airplane, they'd take the smelly airplane.  He immediately felt better, stopped crying and had a pee pee accident.  So I changed his diaper and pants, cradled him, and he fell asleep.

As we approached for landing, I knew I couldn't wrestle him back into the harness without a really unpleasant experience, so I carefully strapped him into my ERGO carrier and let him continue sleeping.  We landed and I collected our carry-on items and, without waking him, exited the airplane.  Standing on the Jetway waiting for my husband and other son, I spoke with the pilot.   Turns out, the airplane almost didn't make it to DC.  It had been circling over Dulles for two hours and they were running out of fuel.  Wow, were we lucky!

We picked up our bags from baggage claim, reached our car, strapped everyone in, Purelled everyone and went home.  It was a fun trip, but I am very glad to be back in my own home.