Watching Airplanes

We were out running errands all over town and had no plan to stop. Then the kids had a better idea. They kept pointing out all of the airplanes. So we pulled over to watch the planes take off at an airstrip. This ended up being the highlight of the day for all of us. Sometimes I forget to stop doing stuff and just be. This was a perfect reminder.

One coming in for a landing as we sit in the back of the car watching.

A "bigger" plane getting ready to take off. Notice the smaller plane waiting it's turn.

Here 3 planes are waiting for their turns. We loved telling the kids about the biplane. 

They were perfectly enchanted and horrified at the idea of wing walkers.

Heathrow Airport with kids

Heathrow airport is a hub so having a layover there is fairly common. We were thrilled to find out about their kids area. It's hidden, but if you ask and follow the signs down back hallways, you will eventually get there. When you enter, you check in letting the person working know your outbound flight. She (the person working when we were there was female) will make sure to let you know in plenty of time so you won't miss your flight.

Our kids immediately went to explore the playground. I couldn't take photos of anyone other than our kids so I can't show you everything. There was a medium sized playground that our kids were playing on. There was also a small crawling area for smaller babies and toddlers. Around these play areas were chairs, wall outlets, and wifi.

There was also a dark sleeping room for kids, no adults allowed. After a 9 hour overnight flight our kids needed to run and climb more than sleep.

There was another back room for teens. It had bean bag chairs, video games, pool tables, etc. It wasn't crowded when we were there. I would say 5-6 in the teen area, 4 kids playing in the play areas, 3-5 adults watching the kids, and 1 kid sleeping. This was a great find and I wish all airports had something this family friendly for travelers.

Chicago O'Hare Playground

We always try to let the kids run off some of their energy before any flight. Different airports have different options and O'Hare has a really cool looking playground. This was a great way for the family to wrap up the trip and come home to me!

Update on me: While the family was on vacation I sat at home with friends and did pretty much nothing. Then I went back to the doctor and things had gotten worse. While I wasn't in pain, my kidney function was decreasing. I was scheduled for surgery the next day. I need to say a special thank you for the help of one awesome friend who took me to and from the hospital and another friend who came to stay with me after the surgery when I was on medications. My family came home to find me on the couch recovering from surgery and in more pain than when they left me. A week or so later I was up and around and a few weeks later I had lithotripsy on the other kidney. That recovery was fast and I haven't been back to the hospital since!

The best pilots ever

Our kids are experienced fliers. They have the process down and can almost perfectly recite the safety instructions. Yet the flights to St. Thomas stand out in more than one way.

As we were boarding the plane from DFW to Miami, we are walking down the jet bridge and Sweet Son is asking if he will get to see the co-pilot. He dreams of being a co-pilot when he grows up. He's always excited to see the pilots and get a glimpse into the cockpit. The pilot overheard this and invited both kids into the cockpit. This is the first and only time this has happened to us. The kids were enthralled. We also learned these would be our pilots from Miami to St. Thomas as well.

The flight from DFW to MIA was easy. On the way out the pilots remember our kids' names and said they would see us on the next one. Seriously, I didn't think the pilots could impress us any more. The flight from MIA to St. Thomas started fine, but there was bad weather in St. Thomas that made it more interesting. We started to land and at the last moment, the nose pulled up and we continued flying. The pilots assured us they had plenty of gas and we would fly around and try to wait out the weather. It's not like St. Thomas has more than one airport. Every time we would fly into the storm the plane would have dips and twists at unexpected times. Many people on the flight were scared and/or sick. Our kids were saying things like "Weeee!" and "Do it again!"  Every time we flew out of the storm our kids were disappointed. I was thrilled they weren't sick as I tried ignoring my motion sickness. After about an hour, we were told that we were cleared for landing. The plane landed safely and everyone cheered.

The plane landing safely would normally be the end of the story. However if you remember from yesterday's post, the St. Thomas airport doesn't have jet bridges. We had been in the air for a lot longer than expected and for the last hour and a half the seat belt sign had been on. Everyone wanted off the plane quickly, so we let most people exit before we even tried. It was still raining hard outside and we are trying to figure out how to get the kids with their backpacks and the adults each carrying a suitcase with a car seat strapped to it down the wet metal stairs. As we got to the front of the plane, I'm telling the kids to hold onto the rail and walk slowly and carefully down the stairs. The wonderful pilot pictured in the first photo, asks Sweet Daughter if she would like to hold his hand. She immediately agrees. After a few steps on the stairs, the wind gusts and she starts to slip. He picks her up and carries her down the rest of the way. At the bottom he waits with her until Wonderful Husband gets down. Then the pilot comes back and helps carry my bag/car seat down the rest of the way. How amazing is that? We wrote a letter to the airline about our experience. I hope he got a bonus or a big raise!

The flights back were rather boring, thank goodness. The kids were disappointed that we had different pilots. The kids spent the flight doing their favorite things - listening to music and drawing. I love that our kids are such great travelers. Then I remember how they are on car trips. I love that our kids are great at traveling on planes at least!

Playing at the Airport

Our good friends decided to get married in St. Thomas and there was no way we would miss it. Of course before any flight - or set of flights in this case, the kids need to run off some energy.

This is one of the play areas in the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport. It's tucked away with only one entrance/exit which makes it easy to monitor. The other great benefit of it being tucked away is that most people don't find it, so it is rarely crowded. 

The St. Thomas airport is a bit smaller. Ok, it's a lot smaller. There aren't jet bridges much less play areas. However, there are large windows that provide a view of all of the planes taking off, landing, boarding, taxing and everything else.

Flying to/from Cancun

Our kids are excellent travelers and traveling by plane is their favorite. We prefer trips where we don't have to bring the car seats though. Our car seats are made for travel and fold up. They are reasonably easy to get on and off the plane, but traveling without them is much easier. Our trip to Cancun didn't include renting a car so we didn't need car seats. We used our favorite CARES harness so the kids were still in a full harness, not just the airplane seat belt.

We love the CARES harnesses.

We did have a bit of trouble at the Cancun airport on the way home. They have this mascot walking around. He/She is a tequila bottle with reminders in English and Spanish reminding you to check anything over 3oz of liquid. My kids saw the mascot and became excited. They asked us what its name is so we told them "tequila" and snickered. Then the kids started saying, "Come back Tequila! We want to see more Tequila!" Everyone around us was laughing.

Tequila!

I did have to explain this entire episode to the kids' teachers. Kids often say things that are strange out of context, but asking for more tequila really deserved a little warning.

CARES harness

Happy 4th of July! I don't really have a patriotic post for this because we were flying that day.

Our kids fly a lot. Since we always need their car seats at our destination, we have always just used them on the planes. This has made the kids more comfortable. However, those seats are heavy. They are great for the kids, but they are kind of a pain for us. Once they were big enough to use the CARES harness we decided to give them a try.

The CARES harness hooks over the back of the seat making it a 4 point harness and helps hold them in more safely. Though, you do still have to make sure they don't unbuckle the bottom and take it off. Amazingly, they can still sleep while wearing it. It is light, portable and simple to install. I highly recommend using them if you don't need a car seat at your destination.

I'm sure you noticed the one thing I added in the last paragraph. We will take these and use them anytime we are flying somewhere we don't need car seats. However, on this trip we had checked the car seats for the flights home and let the kids use these. It was international (Canada to USA) and we had a connecting flight. We had to do customs between the two flights, so we had to get the seat in between to move them. At that point the car seats were fine. We were able to see them and check and there were no issues. We happily checked them back in for the second flight.

By the time we made it home one of the seats was broken. A large chunk of the corner had come off. You know the corner that give the seat it's stability when it's installed? The one that would dig into the seat? This was not a cheap plastic car seat. This was a steal framed seat. (For those outside the U.S., not all of the approved seats here are steal framed.) We spent a ton on these seats because they met my many requirements - they are not only approved for use in the U.S., they are approved by the FAA for plane travel, and they are approved in other countries (Canada, most of Europe) where we travel. Canada and Europe both have much higher standards for car seat safety.

So at the airport at home we had to try tracking down someone to file a damage report. We found tons of people from American Airlines, but we flew on Canada Air. They had apparently left the airport already. It took more than an hour, with us paging people in the airport as well as being on the phone with customer service in Canada before we were able to file a report. In the end, we did get a settlement check from them. Canada Air is one of the few airlines that will pay for damage to a car seat. For most airlines if you check a car seat you agree they are not responsible for any damage and they will not pay. The entire process took more than a month and tons of inconvenience.

So, I would highly recommend the CARES harness if you don't need to travel with a car seat. We have used them since this trip and will continue to do so anytime we are traveling somewhere we only need public transportation. The only down side is checking the car seat, which certainly isn't CARES fault.
 

International Air Travel

We went on a two week international trip with our two year olds. Starting from our home in America, we visited Venice (by way of Germany), Rome, Poland (multiple cities), Germany, and finally back home. This was a great age to travel with kids. They are potty trained, which saves tons of packing room and hassle. They are old enough to walk and carry things, yet not old enough to have opinions about where we are going and what we are doing.

Here we are with everything we took for the two week trip. The kids each have a small backpack with their stuff for the planes - water, magazines, lovie, snacks, wet wipes, jacket, headphones, and a change of clothes. The adults each have a car seat on our backs (I love these seats for travel. They are incredibly heavy, but fit in airplane seats and you can wear them on your back.) We have two rolling suitcases that meet carry on guidelines for all of our airlines - the European ones require very small suitcases if you will carry on. We did have to add one backpack for us at the last minute. Still everything was a carry on and this got us through a 2 week trip. We did laundry twice during the trip.

Here we are eating snacks on our first long plane ride (10 hours). We let the kids use their headphones and watch tv for the first time in their life. They didn't really like it and ask us to turn off the pictures. That messed up our plan of entertainment for the flight. Our backup plan was to let them look at books on my Kindle. I downloaded a bunch before we left. Unfortunately, I lost my Kindle at the airport before we even took off and didn't realize it until we were on our way to Germany (it was found and returned when we got back to the USA). The good news is both kids slept on the flight and were highly amused about people bringing them food every few hours.

You should know that if you are traveling with car seats, they must either go by the window or if the plane has two aisles, it can go in the middle of the middle section. Luckily on this flight we were all 4 together in the middle section. If you decide to travel with a lap child, you cannot have more than one in a row because there wouldn't be enough oxygen masks.

 This was the flight from Germany to Venice. We were sitting 2 and 2 with both kids getting the window seat and we were stuck in the middle seat. It wasn't full and no one wanted to sit in the row with the two year olds so we did get an empty seat next to us.

The flight from Rome to Poland would not let us use the car seats. It was a discount flight and their regulations didn't allow it. The kids loved playing with the windows and once again found a way to sleep on the flight.

By the time we got to the flight from Poland to Germany, the kids were pros. The kids held their new stuffed dragons that they picked up in Poland. We had the choice of a short layover and heading home or a long (day and overnight) layover before leaving Germany. We chose the long one thinking we should break up the flight and give the kids more time to adjust.

The trip home from Germany was the only flight that seemed long. It was a daytime flight. So while we did get a short nap, it was a really long time to be seated, especially with kids who didn't want to watch tv. They didn't cry or scream so we still counted it as a win.

March Randomness

This is just a collection of randomness that didn't fit with anything else this month. Randomness sums up most of our days around here. haha

 

 Wonderful husband let me sleep in and when I came out this is what I found. They used balloons, paper towel rolls, pipe cleaners, and markers to make... stuff. 

Making egg salad

Here you see the kids wearing headphones. We started planning a big trip to take the kids to meet the rest of their family in Poland. We also planned side trips to Italy and Germany. We got these for the flights. They fit the kids properly, they can't be turned up too loudly (thus preventing hearing damage), and they like the cute animals. This was just a picture of them trying them on for the first time. Then we put them away and they were so excited to see them when it was finally time for the trip.

The Christmas spirit is still going, even in March.

Playing with an air pump and a ping pong ball.

Outside Fun

Here are some of the outside activities we did in December. It did get "cold" for a few days, so the kids got to wear their big coats. I put cold in quotes because it never got cold enough to snow and it didn't last long. That's why I love living here.

Can you guess which kid likes being out in the cold and which prefers the heated house?

Here we are in the town square which is decorated for Christmas. This photo was taken after we saw Santa parachute into town. Any event that can combine airplanes and Santa is going to be a hit with my kids.

 Two elves parachuting - great landings

 

 Santa parachuting - not a smooth landing

 

The kids on their balance bikes. I love these things and don't they look so grown up?

 

 This is further proof I let my kids dress themselves.

 

Here the kids are using spray bottles with colored water to make a mess outside. Squeezing the handle is a great fine motor activity and since we normally do it with just water, adding a color made it an entirely new activity for them.

Traveling with Babies

We traveled a lot before having kids. We knew this would slow down, but hoped to continue traveling some. With family spread across 3 countries and friends spread out even farther, this is a reality for us. I don't think we realized how much we would be traveling in the kids' first year. Between holidays and weddings, we went on 4 road trips and 3 air trips all in the first year.

Our first trip was to a wedding in Chicago. We debated going up until the last minute because the kids were only 7 weeks old, but we really wanted to be there to support our friends. We flew and it went well. We bought everyone a seat on the plane and the kids slept in their car seats during the flight. We wore them anytime we went out to keep them safe, happy, and away from germs. This was one of our easiest trips with kids mostly because they were so young. It also helped that we were so sleep deprived to begin with that the extra stress of traveling couldn't push us any farther over the edge.

Chicago

Our second trip was to visit family for Thanksgiving. The kids were two months old and it was a car trip. Somehow this was more complicated. We had to stop multiple times to feed/change/entertain kids. A trip that before kids would take 3.5 hours, took around 5 hours. We had planned it to leave during nap time thinking they would sleep the entire way. They didn't and it wasn't fun.

Thanksgiving with Grandma

Our third trip was for Christmas to the same place. So kids were three months old and another driving trip. This also didn't go well. In fact, it was this trip that made me say we were never going to travel with the kids again. While it was great to see family, it was stressful. The kids didn't travel well. They didn't sleep well. We were still in protect the kids from germs mode and sick people wanted to touch and hold them.

Christmas with great-aunt and great-grandma

Our fourth trip was for Christmas to the other side of the family. So a week after the last trip, we went for a plane trip. This time the flight was not direct and we were going out of the country so we had the added fun of customs. Once again we got the kids their own seat and they were really good for the flights. We had scheduled a long lay over and needed every minute of it. Trying to schedule everything around feeding/changing/nap time is difficult, but possible. It was great seeing family and friends that we wouldn't have seen otherwise.

Father, Son, Grandson

Our fifth trip was six months later. The kids were 9 months old. We went to Florida for a family wedding. Another plane trip and we used the same plan. This time we had the added fun of a car trip in Florida for part of the vacation. Once again, the kids were better in the plane than in the car. We had a ton of fun on this trip and I started to think about more vacations again.

Florida Keys

Our sixth trip was the next month. My wonderful husband surprised me with a road trip to do something I had always wanted to do (trapeze lessons). This road trip also didn't go well. We were stuck in traffic, the kids were hungry and dirty and we couldn't exit. There was a lot of screaming and the kids ended up off schedule. Some kids are fine without a schedule, but our kids are miserable and make everyone around them miserable if we get off schedule. While it was an incredible trip and I'm so glad I got to go, our kids aren't great at road trips.

Sight seeing

Our seventh trip was when the kids were right at a year old. This was another wedding trip and a long road trip. We planned more breaks and changed our timing and it went better. By this time we were getting good at knowing what to pack, what we needed to buy when we got there, and how to manage the kids in a hotel.

Babies on an oil rig

Here are some of our tips for plane trips:

• Get the child their own seat. It's more expensive than having a lap child, but it is so much safer. If your child is hurt it will cost you more than the ticket in the long run. Your child will also be more comfortable in their own car seat. If you are going to need a car seat once you get there, this way you know it won't be damaged by baggage handlers.
• Feed during take off and landing - sucking helps keep the ears clear and pain free.
• Attempt to schedule your flights during nap time.
• Look up family bathrooms at the airport before you leave home. If you only have one baby this might not be such a big deal, but with two infants and needing to pump breast milk this was a must.
• Have a "new" toy for the flight in case your child is awake. We would take away a toy for a month before and then give it back on the trip.
• Know the regulations for traveling with milk and read online stories of how babies are treated at security at that airport. This varied widely and even changed because of an attempted bombing a couple of days before one of our trips.

Tips for car travel:

• Know if your child will sleep in the car and plan around that.
• Plan on each trip taking almost twice the usual amount of time. If you get there earlier, no big deal, but this will hopefully keep you from being late!
• Have a plan for feedings. We used the back of the car, but a park or restaurant would have worked also.
• While we got better, we didn't figure this one out for infants.

Tips for hotels:

• Call and ask if they have a crib you can have in the room. We have used small cribs, folding cribs, and pack-n-plays. Not having to bring your own (or two of your own in our case) saves a lot of time and trouble.
• If possible get a room with a blocked off area. This helps keep the kids area dark while allowing us to be close by without having to tip toe around them.
• Get a room with a fridge.
• Once the kids were eating solids, we would have them sit on a clean sheet rather than on the floor. 

Try to relax and have fun. If you are stressed, your child(ren) will feed off of it and make everything worse. It's a great adventure and go into it knowing things will go wrong.