Hellobee

Our family does not travel often. We have taken many long road trips to visit family and attend weddings, but we almost never go anywhere that requires a plane ride. In fact, at almost 3.5 years old, we had never taken Wagon Jr. on a plane. The few times we had to fly somewhere, we left WJ with a grandparent and went by ourselves. So of course, the idea of flying with both kids was daunting to us, but we knew we’d have to eventually start somewhere.

My three childhood best friends and I are scattered across the country, two on the east coast and two on the west coast. The year we turned 30, we decided to forgo gifts and plan a trip that we could all take together. Two years later, we FINALLY made it happen, resulting in this Memorial Day weekend 2013 trip to Lake Michigan (meeting in the middle!). We’re all in various life stages (seriously! ranging from newlyweds to married 7 years with two kids) so this made for a very fun group of people with 8 adults and 3 children.

Since this blog post is about flying with two children while exclusively pumping is definitely going to turn into a NOVELLA, I’m going to try and recap our trip with bullet points. While the original post on my personal blog will have personal details and pictures, I’ve edited this post down to just travel details that might be helpful for all you here on Hellobee. Here goes nothing!

• We get home from work and daycare as usual.
• Our LOVELY friends stop by to pick up our dogs and all their gear so they can watch them for the weekend. My friends are angels and I love them dearly. Apologies for coating your house and furniture in dog fur. Apologies in advance for definitely asking you to do this for us again in the future.
• Wagon Sr. feeds the kids dinner. I run around like a madwoman, pulling stuff out of the kids’ rooms so I can pack after they go to bed. I run one last load of laundry and wash all the bottles and pump parts. We put the kids to bed as usual.
• I pack our luggage. The first to be packed is our brand new suitcase, which will be checked. When it’s full of mommy and daddy’s clothes and all kinds of baby food and kid supplies, we zip it closed and Wagon Sr. picks it up to weigh it on our scale. The handle immediately rips cleanly off. Various curse words are exclaimed by both of us.
• Luckily, I have a backup suitcase borrowed from another lovely friend (who is also going on the trip with us). I unpack the broken bag and repack everything in her suitcase, leaving out many many things since the suitcase is smaller and the original suitcase and its contents were 15 lbs over the weight limit. This new bag weighs in at just under the 50 lb weight limit.
• Next I pack up everything else:
• Pack n play, to be checked, with collapsible high chair and pack of diapers stuffed in the bag
• rollerboard carry-on suitcase with all the kids’ clothes and toys
• pump bag with supplies
• WJ’s backpack with lunchbox full of snacks and baby food and a few small toys and books
• Wagon Sr.’s backpack with a diaper change kit, various electronics and chargers, our Baby K’Tan carrier, and other random things
• my diaper bag with the regular stuff and a crazy amount of snacks for both kids.
• We also prepare the two things we plan to gate check: our collapsible double stroller (Combi Twin Sport) and Lil Miss Wagon’s carseat (Britax Marathon), along with their gate check bags.
• We have a few more panic attacks and freakouts, then we go to bed.

F R I D A Y

• While WS and the kids get up and have their usual morning of breakfast and playtime, I shower, pump, get ready and then pack up all the last minute items (loveys, toothbrushes, nightlight, baby monitor).
• I pack my pump bag with the eight full bottles of breastmilk that I’ve been hoarding over the past few days. (It’s a good thing we have so many cooler bags and ice packs.) I’ve been exclusively pumping for 8 months now, and I’m no longer pumping enough to cover LMW’s feedings each day, so we usually supplement my freshly pumped milk with a bag of frozen milk each day. Since frozen milk won’t stay frozen through the trip to Michigan, I’ve hoarded several bottles of fresh, refrigerated milk over the past week by supplementing with more frozen milk each day.
• I also thaw enough frozen milk to cover the rest of Friday’s feedings and pack those bottles into my diaper bag. Between the fresh, refrigerated milk I’m packing and the thawed bottles I have in the diaper bag, I definitely have more than enough milk to cover my usual deficit over the course of the 4 day trip, but I’m aware that the stress of the trip might tank my supply (as well as the fact that my period is due) so I’m packing as much as I can hold. LMW has never had formula, and she’s 10.5 months old, so I’m hoping to avoid the transition from breastmilk to formula, especially during travel!
• We pack up the car, load up the kids, and make our way towards the airport. (When we tell WJ it’s time to go, he runs to put his shoes on and asks “is the plane here?”) LMW takes her morning nap on the way.
• We arrive at the preflight parking area (we’ve made a reservation in advance), which is a few miles away from the airport. There’s a shuttle waiting and it pulls right up to the back of our car, so we load all our luggage into it directly from our trunk. We are also able to buckle the kids into the double stroller and lift the stroller right into the shuttle, which is nice.
• When we get to the airport, we load up a luggage cart with all of our stuff and head to check in. We check our large suitcase and pack n play and go through security. Luckily, there’s no line. I pull out all our breastmilk and baby food to be checked separately and that all goes smoothly. I get chastised by a TSA agent who points to our double stroller and tells me I should check it at the counter. I explain that we need it to get the kids across the airport to the gate, at which point we’ll gate check it. She argues with me until she realizes how young LMW is. She had assumed the kids were twins and they could both walk. Even still… we are toting a total of 5 bags and a carseat, so getting across the airport with the two kids would be really tough.
• During our security check our stroller sets off the alarm so I have to get patted down. I don’t really mind, except the nice TSA agent who requests a female pat down gets a curt, “no, I can’t” from the person who is currently standing at a podium and apparently the one in charge of performing female pat downs. The nice agent laughs it off, then realizes that the nasty one is not joking. She asks again and gets denied again, starts to ask why, then stops and runs to get gloves so she can perform the pat down herself. I have no idea why the nasty agent refused to pat me down. Maybe she didn’t want to touch my mommy tummy. In any case, the pat down goes fine and we pack everything back up, pack the kids back into the stroller and make our way to the gate.

• The terminal’s air conditioning is broken and it’s totally packed to the gills with waiting passengers. Wagon Sr. takes the stroller to try to get LMW to nap before the flight, but this fails. Since it’s a full flight, they check our carry-on suitcase and we gate check the stroller and carseat. We carry both kids and 4 bags total onto the plane. It’s not easy but we settle into our seats (WJ and me in the aisle and middle seats in one row, WS and LMW in the middle seat behind us– the airline wouldn’t let me book 3 seats in a row for whatever reason). Both kids pass out immediately after takeoff. They both sleep for about 40 minutes, and the flight lasts just under 2 hours. I find a Life and Style in the seat pocket and am extremely happy. My period starts in the middle of the flight and I am extremely pissed.

• Silly mommy didn’t bring any real food onto the plane even though it’s lunchtime, so we spend $40 on in-flight food. WS and I gulp down sandwiches and WJ refuses to eat anything except a chocolate chip Clif bar and a bite of cheese. We consider alcoholic beverages for ourselves.
• We land in Chicago. After deplaning and picking up our stuff at baggage claim, we buckle the kids into the stroller, load up our luggage, and board a shuttle to pick up our rental car. We’re able to lift the stroller into the shuttle again (such a convenience!). I feed LMW some lunch while WS waits in line to get our car.

• We load up the car (a Hyundai Santa Fe, hurray!) and install our carseat for LMW and the rental company’s carseat for WJ. We start the drive to the cabin we’ve rented, which is about 1.5 hours away, through Illinois and Indiana and just over the border into Michigan (and back into Eastern Standard Time!). We hit unbelievable rush hour, long weekend traffic leaving the city and the drive takes over 3 hours. Both kids nap during the drive, and we end up having to stop for dinner about 45 minutes away from the cabin so the kids can eat and I can pump.
• When we stop for dinner, I help WS take the kids inside and order the food. Once everyone is settled and the kids are starting to eat, I head back out to the car to pump. I realize that my new pump didn’t come with a car adapter. I go to use the battery pack instead and realize I never filled it with batteries. I head into the gas station and buy a 4 pack of batteries. I fill the pack with batteries and realize the other side opens, too, and I need 4 more batteries. Curse words. At this point I really don’t want to go back into the building for the THIRD time, so I dig through WS’s backpack and find some batteries for his flash and use those. I pump and head back in to swallow some dinner and help WS pack the kids back up.

• We FINALLY arrive at the cabin and settle in. Two of the other couples have already arrived, and the last couple is scheduled to arrive at the cabin past midnight. Our family is staying in the basement, which has a HUGE bedroom with two queen sized beds, a living room (separated by a door), and a full bathroom. We try to figure out the best configuration and end up pushing WJ’s bed into a corner and block off the other two sides with the pack n play and some bedside tables.
• Throughout this time, the kids have been playing with everyone while we’re moving furniture and unpacking bedtime things. By the time we’re all settled in, it’s almost 9pm and both kids are overtired. We put LMW down first and she puts up quite a fight. After much screaming she finally goes to sleep around 11pm. At some point during this process, we change WJ into his pajamas and put him into his bed. He is excited but exhausted so he falls asleep quickly.
• I pump and WS and I both head to bed around 1am, totally exhausted. As soon as we lay down and close our eyes, both kids wake up crying. WS takes WJ and I take LMW. Over the next three hours, LMW is up and down in various states– happy, crying, sleeping, dozing, playing… I try everything, including laying her in the bed with me and rocking her like a baby. Nothing works. She finally goes down around 4am and I think I get about an hour of sleep.
• I don’t even remember what happened with WJ and WS– I think WJ woke crying one more time and WS ended up sleeping next to him.

S A T U R D A Y  &  S U N D A Y

• These two days go by in a whirlwind as we eat, hang out, visit a carnival, and struggle to get LMW to sleep. She does surprisingly well with her naps in the pack n play, crying for a minute and then laying down and going to sleep. For bedtime, I have to hold her until she fell asleep after multiple screaming put-down attempts. For the most part, both kids sleep through the night. WJ is a total star for bedtime: he crawls right into the queen-sized bed he gets all to himself and passes out.
• Here are some pictures from the two days of fun!

M O N D A Y

• I’m so glad I brought as much milk as I did, because before we leave the cabin on Monday morning, I have exactly enough (2 bottles) to get LMW through this day until we get home and have access to my frozen stash again. With my supply dip and the fact that LMW’s eating less food and drinking more milk with the stress of traveling, we’ve made it by the skin of our teeth.
• We say hasty goodbyes to our friends and jump in the car and head back towards Chicago. LMW naps most of the way there.
• We return our rental car and load up on the shuttle to get back to the airport.
• At check-in, we’re informed that our stroller needs to be weighed to qualify for gate check. It’s 2 pounds over the 20 lb limit. We have to check our stroller. We decide to check the carseat as well (and assume our carry-on rollerboard will be checked at the gate since it’s another full flight) and proceed through the airport with both kids in tow.
• There is a long line at security, but we get access to a family line which basically lets us jump the entire line. Going through security is a lot faster since we don’t have our stroller or carseat this time. But…
• Going through the airport to get to our gate without having the kids in their stroller is a whole different story. We still have our luggage cart, so WJ rides on that for a bit while I push and WS holds LMW. We get to our gate and settle into some seats, and I go to find us some lunch. I get back and we all attempt to eat while we wait for our flight to board. It’s delayed by about half an hour but we don’t mind, since it gives us plenty of time to eat and get our carry-on checked.

• For the last 30 minutes or so of the flight, WS wrestles with a very active LMW, and when we land we are all so relieved to be back in our home city. We gather up all our bags and head to baggage claim, where we are helped by a skycap with a big old luggage cart. We buckle the kids into their stroller, load everything up, and head to the preflight parking shuttle. We are again able to lift our double stroller right up into the shuttle.
• We get to the parking lot, pack up the car, and head home. Finally.
• Once we get home, I start unpacking and putting things into place so that we can put the kids to bed. WS feeds them both dinner and we bathe them both and put them to bed. I pump at this point, and then we both start the cleanup process of unpacking, laundry, and bottle washing. We order ourselves some Chinese food because, dangit, we’re tired and we’re worth it.
• We realize once we start unpacking that we totally forgot to pick up a piece of luggage from baggage claim at our home airport. It’s the pack n play bag that also has one of our two collapsible high chairs and a pack of diapers. Really, it’s the ONLY piece of luggage that is not vital for our day-to-day activity, so we’re thankful it wasn’t something else like clothes, or toiletries, or my pump. We call the airline and they have no idea where it is. Two days later, we get a call. Not only have they located it, but they are delivering it to our house. Sweet.

Some things to remember for our next trip:

• Bring instant coffee, creamer, and sweetener. Since we were staying at a cabin I planned on buying coffee at a store nearby once we figured out the coffeemaker situation (regular? need filters? keurig? etc). A friend brought Starbucks Via instant coffee and that was a lifesaver on the first morning before we got to a store. But I actually never ended up getting to a store and since I was one of the only real serious coffee drinkers, I had to inconvenience someone else to run out and get some coffee.
• Find a double umbrella stroller under 20 lbs for our next trip, or fly any other airline than American. Apparently, according to online forum posts about traveling with kids, there are only a couple of double strollers under 20 lbs. Many people with two kids similar in age end up purchasing something that will link two umbrella strollers together. Apparently, American Airlines is the ONLY airline that has this restriction (pretty much every other airline will let you gate check any stroller as long as it collapses). So if we fly American again, we’ll have to find one of these elusive super lightweight double strollers. Or we’ll just book with a different airline, even if it costs more.
• On that note… our original plan was to bring a single umbrella stroller with an attached buggy board which allows WJ to stand while LMW sits. This would have worked, but WJ was constantly asking us to carry him. Having the side by side double stroller was a lifesaver and I’m so glad we brought it.
• Checking luggage is awesome. It was great being able to throw anything in our checked luggage and not worry about liquids and anything that would not get through the security checkpoint for carry-ons. Since traveling with kids will never be a traveling light kind of situation, I’ll always check a bag or two from now on, even if it costs extra. We had 4 carry-ons and personal items to juggle on the plane since I had my pump bag, but once I’m pump-free, we’ll keep it to just 2 bags next time: a backpack for WS and a diaper bag for me.
• WJ sleeps great in new places. He did fine sleeping in a bed pushed up next to a wall and surrounded on the other sides by pillows. I can’t wait for LMW to get to this age. I hope she does just as great as WJ did. If so, we’ll travel all the time.