Friday, May 24, 2013

Navigating the Airport with 3 Four and Under...

To say that I was a little nervous about traveling 6 hours by plane with a four year old, a two year old and a six month old might be a bit of an understatement.  Even with Nani and Grumpa's help.  Because while you might think that three adults and three kids means we were "evenly matched" I can't help but think that we aren't when one of those kids is an energetic Mae Bae.

We got to the airport and began the logistical nightmare of unloading the car and the kids and getting everything that needed to be checked, checked.

Then we ventured into the security check area.

You know how there are always TSA horror stories going around?

Well I wished I'd had a video of our experience with TSA, because they were awesome.  They guided us through security.  We had several people helping our group.  One man came over and carried everything for me.  They brought all of our belongings over to a special little booth where we could take our time getting everything repacked.  They were respectful and polite and incredibly helpful.  I was just blown away by what a positive experience it was.  You don't expect security checks to be positive, but our experience with the Detroit TSA actually was. 

Then we started walking with the girls... hoping that if we walked enough, they might "get their wiggles out..."


You can imagine how incredibly excited I was to discover that the Detroit Airport actually has a play area for kids.  An awesome little play area.  And it was empty.  The babies immediately got to work playing:


Patrick pretended to be a plane zooming around the play area by scooting backwards, which is his current mode of getting around:


It was almost impossible to get a non-blurry picture of Sadie because she was zooming around the room going down the little slides:


Patrick worked on being Patrick and smiling every time a camera was pointed in his general direction:


And the girls geared up for the exciting prospect of flying on a plane:


Oh and Mae sprinted for the exit while giggling about fifty times.  Because apparently there's nothing better than trying to get past Mommy:


Then I saw this:


Opps.  Let's just say I ignored rule #1.  

Rule #1 means that Sadie was too tall for this playground back when she was three.

Really 42 inches is the maximum height?  Whatever.

I'm not telling my four year old she's "too big" for the playground.


Because let's face it, we all know who the rule breaker is in the family.

The two year old.  For example:


Does she look like she's ready for a four hour plane ride, a two hour layover and another two hour ride?

Yup.  I was definitely nervous.


How she did on the plane, however, deserves it's very own post...

Because I was about to be shocked...


3 comments:

  1. So great to hear about Detroit, especially since my sister lives near Detroit and I'd been thinking about visiting her!

    FYI, the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport TSA people are also just plain awesome. They're efficient, polite, helpful...I lived in that area for over seven years and probably flew, on average, at least twice a year from that airport. I never had a bad experience or even a middling experience with them; they were always so courteous and friendly that it practically made your day to get checked through...and how often can you say *that* about the TSA? :P They even keep extra ziplock bags at their stations to give to people when their bags (of toiletries, etc) break.

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  2. Sorry to break this to you but you've also broken rule #5 (no shoes!). This is from a Mom who breaks rules a lot ):

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  3. Dear Cammie,

    I would like to submit this formal proposal of the betrothal of your son, Patrick, to my daughter Isabella. (She is a few months older, which I hope he doesn't mind). Upon seeing the pictures in this post, she was quite taken with him, pointing and squealing with delight.

    We can work on wedding details over the next few years, but in the meantime, please apologize to Sadie for me. It does not appear that a biretta or a miter are in his future. ;-)

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I love comments and I read every single comment that comes in (and I try to respond when the little ones aren't distracting me to the point that it's impossible!). Please show kindness to each other and our family in the comment box. After all, we're all real people on the other side of the screen!