Like most parents, I was apprehensive to fly with the babies. But, since I had a family reunion in NY last weekend, it was either bite the bullet and fly, or bite the bullet and drive - neither an ideal situation. The clincher was that if I drove I would be going it alone, and if I flew Eric could come with us. Since I have done some semi-long road trips by myself already (the longest being 5 hours), and I literally injured my right shoulder by constantly reaching back to both carseats giving toys, sippy cups, and snacks to stave off double baby meltdowns, I decided that a solo drive of up to 12-14 hours (without stops!) would be enough to send me over the edge. So, we took out a second mortgage on the house and reserved our plane tickets and rental car.
When choosing which flight to take, we had two choices: fly during naptime or bedtime. Either one was a gamble - babies can be cranky when a nap is missed, or when going to bed late. In a perfect world, neither would be an issue: the baby would sleep peacefully on the plane, and maybe even while leisurely strolling around the airport. We chose, for many reasons, to fly at night - one, because of flights available; two, because of Eric's work schedule; and three, because we have observed that the babies are usually more pleasant when going to bed late than when missing a nap. Still, the flights were quite late at night, so we were gambling that they would be able to sleep in the airport/on the plane.
I tried to be as prepared as possible - we were able to ship things (diapers, jars of baby food) to NY so that we did not have a check a bag (since they now charge for that as well); we had formula and bottles for airport/plane feedings; we had organic fruit pops for take-off and landing to help with little ears; we had emergency snacks; we had books and toys and several pacifiers; we had plenty of diapers and changes of clothes; we gate checked our monstrosity double stroller and had Baby Bjorns to hold the boys on the plane to keep our hands free; we paid a little extra for "Choice" seats so that we could sit across the aisle from each other (two lap infants cannot sit in the same row due to the number of oxygen masks) and near the front of the plane so we could get on and off more quickly.
But, as is often the case, the best preparation does not always matter! On the flight from RDU to CLT, we boarded the plane about 30 minutes late due to an indicator light that needed to be checked. We then proceeded to sit on the plane for over 30 more minutes for who-knows-what reason. This of course meant that we were late arriving in Charlotte. We were told to check with the gate agent for our departure gate to Syracuse. We did so, and the agent informed us that we would be flying out of D9 and that it was delayed 25 minutes. This was blessed news, since we needed to use the restroom, change the babies, and find something for dinner. Now, I will just mention once that I did say that we should go and check our gate to make sure of the delay, just in case this guy was mistaken, but this suggestion was vetoed by the hungrier partner of Team Gavaletz. So, we went about our business, got something to eat, and took turns eating and strolling the boys to keep them happy. On the way back to the gate, I just glanced at the departure screen to make sure our flight was still leaving out of the same gate, and it was. The only problem is, it also was not delayed. The words "ON TIME" were never a negative thing to me before. The flight was scheduled to leave at 10:09 pm and it was in fact 10:08 pm. We ran the rest of the way, and the gate was decidedly empty. A nearby agent said they were gone and pointed us in the direction of guest services.
I will skip over the next several minutes/hours, where Eric apologized profusely for not listening to his all-knowing wife (or something like that) and I tried not to cry in the middle of the airport, and we re-reserved seats for the next afternoon and arranged for his sister to borrow car seats from a neighbor with twins to come and get us for the night (his family lives 15 minutes away, thank God). It all worked out in the end - we did not have to sleep on the floor of the airport, we got to spend time with Eric's grandmother, and we eventually got on another flight to SYR.
Of course, that flight was not without difficulty either. After the entire plane boarded, the captain announced that we would be remaining at the gate (with the power turned off to save fuel) because lightning was spotted in the area and ground crew cannot be on the tarmac during lightning. Once we finally began moving, we were 15th in line for takeoff. This all meant that we ended up taking off about when we were supposed to be landing.
Now, I know sitting on a plane, not making any progress, is not fun for anyone. But being in this position while holding a 9 month old baby is so much more than not fun. Don't get me wrong - as babies go, ours are quite good-natured. But they still required constant stimulation to keep them quiet and happy, and sitting for an
extra hour or more on the plane was enough to make me want to NEVER fly again. At least not with kids. And our babies really didn't fuss that much! It's just exhausting to be the sole entertainer for that amount of time! The flight time is one thing - I was prepared for that. But to add on an extra hour of just sitting - with no motion, no white noise, no nothing to help induce sleep! You have to keep introducing new toys every few minutes (or less) to keep them interesting, to read the same book over and over, to try to catch every toy or pacifier that he decides to drop at any given moment. Even when the baby was sleeping, I couldn't sleep because I kept picturing us hitting some turbulence and the baby flying up to the ceiling because I wasn't holding on tight enough while sleeping. (Did you know that the TSA says that you cannot "wear" your baby in a carrier for take off and landing, only during the cruising portion of the flight? This doesn't make any sense to me. It seems to me that the carrier would act as a sort of seatbelt.)
But, eventually, we made it to NY. (More on the visit later.) On the way back, we were more blessed with on time departures, no missed flights, etc. However, the return trip didn't start out too well - not only was there a gigantic line for security (and since SYR is a tiny airport, there were no "family lines", which are the best idea EVER), but the lovely TSA agents were obviously in a perpetual bad mood about living in one of the cloudiest cities in America (I can say that because I'm from there:)). They were rude, unhappy, and using their "power" for evil. We had 14 jars of baby food left over from the box I had shipped to NY (we had this much because we missed an entire day due to the missed flight), and since we did not check a bag, these were in our carry on bags. They were vacuum sealed, obviously brand new, and the TSA website does not specify how much baby food you can carry on, only that it be a "reasonable amount." Now, putting aside the fact that it's ridiculous to have a limit on how much food you carry for your child, we tried to explain to them that we were traveling with two babies for 7 or more hours, and that we missed a flight on the way there and did not have food - and since the airport does not sell baby food ( or diapers), we thought 14 jars was a reasonable amount. But, they did not share our view. So, not only did they throw out half of our food (the supervisor said, arbitrarily, that 6 jars was the limit he would allow - but someone else allowed 8, so you can see how hard and fast their rules are...) but they subjected Eric to an extensive personal search - why we don't really know. They claimed it was because they could not open the jars to know if they were safe (without spoiling the food), but the funny thing was they asked us which one of us wanted to be searched - does that make any sense? If one of us were dangerous or had some ill intent, would that person volunteer to be searched? All in all, it was a stressful way to start the journey back home, but luckily the rest of the trip was uneventful and we were happy to be back home!
