Air Travel with Kids Is Fun

Our big summer trip to California began at 3:30am EST, when we woke the kids up and buckled them in the car. Forty-five minutes later we were at the airport and being informed by Southwest that to have Asher fly as a lap child, we needed to have his birth certificate or immunization record to prove his birth date. We had neither. I used to fly with the boys' birth certificates, but then no one ever asked me for them so I stopped bothering. Not to worry, the airline informed us. We could simply purchase Asher a seat right then, and they'd even give us the infant rate. And we would "probably" be reimbursed by the airline later if we sent them the receipt and proof of Asher's birth date.

It was 4am. Our suitcases were packed, our car was in the long-term lot, our boys were full of anticipation, we had a rental car scheduled for pick-up in Sacramento at noon. We bought the seat.

This is Asher.

This is Asher's new backpack.

This is Asher pulling his backpack.



Apparently, this is some kind of magical cuteness formula, because never in my 5 1/2 years of being a mother has any of my children garnered the kind of attention Asher and that backpack did. People of all ages, genders, races, and nationalities stopped to stare and giggle as he pulled it down the terminal or ran with it down the moving walkway. Even groups of tattooed twenty-something young men commented. It was like traveling with a B-list celebrity, without any autographing. Scott has decided that if I'm going to die, I should do it soon so that he can use Asher and his backpack to find a new wife.

So we're at the airport in Chicago. The airport in Chicago has lots of moving walkways. The boys LOVE moving walkways. We went up and down the moving walkways while we were waiting for our connection until I found myself chasing Caleb, who was running gleefully away from me in the wrong direction on the moving walkway, while what felt like the entire terminal stopped to watch and everyone on the walkway jumped out of the way to let him go by rather than, I don't know, stopping him for me. That was the end of playing on the moving walkway.

I've already blocked out the details of the actual flights except for a general recollection that Asher reinforced my belief that kids from 18months to 2 1/2 years or so are the worst to travel with.

Once we finally arrived at the airport in Sacramento Scott had to go get the rental car while I waited in the terminal with all the kids and bags. Caleb continued to enjoy running away from me, so he got to spend some time sitting in his car seat on the curb while a very nice airport police officer on a Segway tried to distract him. The getting of the rental car took longer than expected (doesn't it always?), so I let Asher out of the stroller to run around (with his backpack, of course). While I was chasing after him and talking to Scott on the phone about when he was going to be there, Evan, who was sitting in one of the car seats on the curb, pulled one of the plastic car seat bags the airline had give us over himself. A couple of women walking by stopped him and then proceeded to give me the longest, dirtiest looks I have ever received in my 5 1/2 years as a parent. Apparently they were unimpressed with my parenting and supervision skills.

Eventually Scott arrived with the car, we discovered the only way we and all of the luggage could fit was with half of our stuff sitting on our laps, and then we were off. Caleb fell asleep in about 30 seconds and Evan spent the next 2 hours asking us 162 times if we were almost there. Finally, a good 16 hours after we left our house in Massachusetts, we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house in Redding.

Hiking to a waterfall on a very uncharacteristically cold day.

Scott explaining rock formation, erosion, or some such thing to the boys.

Throwing sticks in the waterfall.

Asher trying to fling himself in the river.