Airplane Tricks

I guess you could say we are seasoned travelers. We have flown anywhere from one to four times a year since moving away from our home state. Many of those flights have been with just me and the kids because Brian was working at home or in another country. Several of those flights by myself have been overseas and in length of 11 hours or so. I have also traveled with a variety of ages of children. The most challenging would be an infant that can't walk only because getting on and off the plane carrying all your stuff is a little more difficult then. On the other hand, the babies always sleep on the plane at least a little which makes the actual flight easier than with older kids. With older kids, as I would consider all mine now at 6, 5, and 2 1/2 years of age, getting on the plane becomes easier because at least they can walk, and sometimes you can even get them to carry something for you. However, it is much less likely that they will sleep so I do not get any real breaks during the actual flight.

We just arrived in Texas (sans husband) on Wednesday, and this flight was a breeze. Getting through security was so much easier now that they can all deal with their own stuff and shoes. That used to be the worst part. When I have a baby that I can't put down and have to collapse a stroller and watch other children so they don't wander off, it can get a little tricky. We still hold up the line a bit, but who cares? We had one stop without a plane change (which is wonderful because rushing to catch a connecting flight is stressful) and were on the plane a total of 5 hours. I packed each child a little rolling suitcase full of activities to occupy them during the flight and a backpack for me with back-up activities, snacks, and two empty water bottles. We are now too big of a family to fit on one side of the aisle so we split up, 2 and 2. Hannah and Genna sat across the aisle from me, and Isaac sat next to me.

I was amazed that I never had to bust out my backpack of back-up activities or even most of my snacks. In the girls' bags, I always put a new coloring book or two since that will entertain them for a long time. (Seriously, they colored for about 6 hours of one of our overseas flights! Girls are great that way!) I also give them an activity book each and a blank notebook for drawing. They each pick out a small stuffed animal or two to take and miniature dolls. Gum, stickers, crayons, lacing cards, and books they can read themselves were also in their bags.

Isaac's bag had trains, cars, and dinosaurs. With the blank paper in my bag, I drew him a town for his cars with roads and destinations of his choice, like parks, swimming pools, and houses. He also had a Thomas water painting kit that we didn't even use. I guess we'll use it on the plane ride back. He also got two new coloring books, some books for me to read to him, and some stickers.

My backpack had an erasable crayon activity, a folder of paper dolls, a folder of home-made sticker activities, an old CD player with head phones, a book of stories and song CDs, and my Zune with kid music installed. I just remembered that Isaac did use the Zune once because he thought the "head bones" (AKA head phones) would help his ears feel better. (One of his ear tubes is clogged, and I guess this caused some pain for him this time.) So Sandra Boynton's Blue Moo soothed his ears until they made us turn it off for the official decent.

One way I make the things I pack stretch is to not let them get out anything but a stuffed animal and gum during the first take off. When the seatbelt sign goes off, they are allowed to open their bags and pick an activity to do. This rule makes them come up with something creative to do or alows them time to chill out and possibly fall asleep during take off. Once that bag is opened, sleep chances for older kids significantly decrease. Hannah actually did fall asleep during take off and Genna tried but couldn't get comfortable. Isaac looked out the window for a while. He kept asking me why we were tilting and if we were going to turn upside down.

Once the seatbelt light goes off, the girls always pick coloring first. In fact, they colored, drew pictures, and read for the first couple hours. The last two hours, they were reading and doing their activity books. Isaac and I read books, colored, played cars on the paper town I made, and took many trips to the bathroom. He fell alseep after a snack and then was woken up by his ears hurting and that's when we turned on the Zune.

I still can't believe we killed that much time without using the really cool activities I brought. Although it certainly isn't a relaxing thing to do, flying with kids doesn't have to be stressful or miserable. I do recall feeling with each impending birth that I wouldn't be able to fly alone anymore, but it was always fine. This time I am not worried about flying alone when Speck joins the real world, but travel is getting more expensive the closer we get to filling up our pew.