We’re back from vacation! And while we loved the time away (the lovely warm weather of Arizona, lots of swimming, and relaxed family time with my immediate family), we’re happy to be home and settling back into our regular routines.

In the middle of the trip, Miss H cut 4 (!!!) new teeth – her upper and lower canines. And as it turns out, teething with these was much worse than when she got her 12 previous teeth (including her molars). This made for a bit of a grumpy, clingy little girl on our trip.

Ok, enough of me whining! I’m here to share how our flights went. Since our flight out was widly different than our return flight, I’ll share with you those experiences separately. And, if you want a reminder for how we prepped for these flights, I blogged about it here.

Outbound Flight
We went into this flight feeling 100% prepared and ready. It was an 8:30am flight, which means we left the house at 6am to head to the airport. But since it was the first morning after changing our clocks back for Daylight Savings Time, to Miss H her 5:30am wakeup time would have felt more like 6:30am, so we didn’t have to disrupt her schedule. Unfortunately we were running late so we had little time for her to burn off some energy at the airport. This was Bad Move #1 for the day. And O’Hare is a very busy airport leaving little open space to play anyway.

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We had opted to pay for the “economy plus” seats on the plane, with Miss H as a lap infant. We’d debated this option vs. purchasing a seat for her. I’m still torn on what would have been best, but we did love the extra leg room and being situated at the front of the plan, which meant we were able to exit the plane quickly at the end.

Miss H was a happy camper during takeoff, happily munching on cereal.

Family photo as we take off!

Once we were in the air I made the mistake of overwhelming the situation by offering Miss H some fun activities. This was Bad Move #2 for the day. I should have read the signs that Miss H was content with what she was doing (eating O’s and pretending the sticker in front of her on the tray table was a button). Instead, I offered options – “Want a book? The iPad? Your lovey?” I really think this is where things when downhill. Miss H tends to like to see every single option available, and veto each thing individually. I think she gets overwhelmed. Which means I gave her the opportunity to turn down every book and toy we had.

We also realized as we were going through all of the entertainment we’d packed, almost everything was hard. This was Bad Move #3 for the day. Toddlers throw things. The poor guy sitting next to me probably hated us. Fortunately he didn’t get hit with anything hard (we managed to catch and hide everything that could do damage), but he did get assaulted with raisins, Cheerios, bandaids, and even at one point, her lovey (that one was embarassing – “Hi sir. Umm. Can I have that green bunny lovey that is laying on your stomach? K. Thanks.”). What we did find success with was bandaids, kept in their wrappers. She loved pulling them out of a container and putting them back in, or handing them one by one to us.

In general, there was a whole love of squirming, yelling, and crying as Miss H did not want to sit still and engage with any of the items we brought. Which brought us to doing a lot of this.

Hanging out by the bathrooms.

Fortunately for us, we weren’t far from the middle of the plane, which happened to have a huge open area by the bathroom. Normally flight attendants don’t like you to stand around and linger, but everyone on our plan was awesome and they never said a word. For probably 2 hours of the 3 hour flight, Mr. H and I traded off standing up there with Miss H. It was what made her happiest – being able to watch the flight attendants make and serve coffee, watching the other passengers move around, etc. It saved us!

I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved to leave a plane! By the end of the flight I was sweating, exahusted, and starving!

Our trip was a full week, so I blocked out the notion that we’d have to get back on a plane. Certainly we could just stay there forever.

We were in the pool as soon as we got to the house!

Return Flight
Our return flight had similar timing – 9am flight, meaning we left the house at 6:15am. However, we were able to get there in plenty of time for Miss H to run around the airport and burn off some of that toddler energy! We had the same seats as we’d had on our earlier flight, but we were dismayed to see that it was a different plane without the large area for us to stand around in during the flight.

Fortunately for us, Miss H was a dream on this flight! She did have a few screaming fits when she wasn’t getting what she wanted, but overall she did great and the only time we had to get up with her was for a diaper change! She actually sat on our laps or in between us (yes, the three of us fit sitting side by side in two seats!). We had packed a lot of different forms of entertainment for the trip: iPad loaded with games and movies/headphones, books, a buckle toy, a windup bug, and her Lovey. Those toys (with the exception of her Lovey, which did not get thrown this time), stayed in the bag the entire flight.

What did Miss H entertain herself with, you ask? She buckled our seat belts over and over again. She wiped down everything with wet wipes – the trays, Mr. H’s arms, etc. She had a lot of snacks. We even managed to have a package of Mum Mum’s last for about 45 minutes by breaking it up piece by piece and having her say “please” before each piece. Somehow, all of this managed to fill the 3 hour flight.

What we learned from this experience was rather than try and direct Miss H to play with X, Y, or Z, we let her take the lead and discover on her own what she’d find interesting and fun.

And, wouldn’t you know it, right after we landed, Miss H fell asleep in my lap! Silly girl.

Family photo at the end of the flight with a sleepy girl!

Helpful Travel Items
There were a few things that helped us along the way.

  •  Zoli Sumo Snack Stack: We filled one container with sliced blueberries, one with Cheerios and toast, and one with raisins. It worked perfectly on both flights – each container holds quite a bit of food, and the containers seal really well.
  • Wet Ones: We used these to wipe down our arm rests and tray tables on the plane. But this also turned into a source of entertainment for Miss H as she played with the wipes and the wipes package. Instant entertainment!
  • Bandaids:  Ok, you don’t have to buy the Muppet bandaids for your trip, but they are super cute! Miss H loved having bandaids to play with – she could stuff them in a little bag and pull them out over and over again.
  • Snacks: Banana (takes awhile to eat), blueberries (nutritious and relatively clean), Cheerios, Mum Mums.

Did you learn lessons from flights with your LOs that helped you on your next flight?