We're home again from our long weekend to Florida. I don't recommend traveling 7980 air miles with three young children. It's not that the children were a problem--they were unbelievably good on the planes--but you end up carting around a lot of gear when traveling with little ones. We had car seats for the twins, a double stroller, a diaper bag, a back pack with a nebulizer, and miscellaneous toys and books packed in our back packs. Even with four pack horses, it was hard work to cart all the gear along with two infants and a toddler on and off the planes.
Matt and Kara could not sit next to each other on the airplane because you can't have two lap seat infants in one row as there are only four oxygen masks in each row. (Have you ever been on a flight that used oxygen masks?) They ended up in aisle seats near each other which was better than window or middle seats except for that sometimes a baby head would end up sticking out in the aisle which is risky for said head.
Our first flight left Anchorage at 4:20PM and arrived in Seattle almost 3 and 1/2 hours later. This flight went well except for shortly after takeoff. Bentley had been sitting on my lap looking out the window as we took off. I explained to him that we were leaving the ground. I pointed out that we were going up and up and into the clouds. He suddenly freaked and wanted to "Go away!"--as in get off the plane NOW. I passed him to his grandfather in the aisle seat, but he was still quite frantic in his demands to "go away". Fortunately he kept his volume low. This was Bentley's fifth trip on airplanes, so his reaction took me by surprise.
The second portion of the trip was Seattle to Orlando, a 5 1/4 hour night flight. We kept Bentley away from the windows and covered his ears during take off and landing. The flight passed fairly well with all three little ones getting some sleep even if the adults were not so fortunate. Jackson had a short screaming fit in the middle of the flight, but Matt ended it relatively quickly with a fresh diaper and a bottle.
The two and half hour car trip from Orlando to Venice did not go half so well as the much longer plane flights. The children had reached their limits and let us know it. I'm glad they saved their ire for when we had no public audience.
The two flights home went excellently for the kidlets with no outbursts at all--from them. On the first flight there was some world class shrieking from a 21 month old in the row in front of Matt. She had volume and stamina. We were all very thankful it wasn't one of ours making the noise.
We left Orlando at 6:20PM and arrived back in Anchorage at 2:30AM. The last leg of our trip was on a combination cargo and passenger jet. We had to board and exit the plane through the back which required that we walk outside from the terminal to the plane. This wasn't so bad in Seattle although it was raining a little. When we arrived in Anchorage it was 15 degrees and we didn't have coats for the kids. We wrapped them in their blankets which were not large enough. Little Genevieve was barefoot in a summer dress. Brrr! In addition to hauling the three kids from the plane to the terminal we had to drag the baby seats and stroller along with us. Insanity.
We survived the experience of traveling with three young children. Would we do it again? Yes we would because the reason for our trip wasn't to take a plane ride, it was to introduce the twins to their uroma and uropa.
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