Yesterday was a truly a Traveling Tuesday as the three kiddos and I ventured back to Florida from Colorado, by ourselves. I’m no stranger to traveling alone with my kids but it does not always go smoothly (see, for example, my “Up in the Air” trilogy–part 1, part 2, part 3) and this was only my second time doing all three kids by myself (the first time was for a funeral last year).
I’ve shared “A Day in the Life” before, chronicling my daily life as a mommy so I thought it would be fun to do the same for a day of travel. So, here it is!
2:00 trying to convince Sugarplum to go potty before we leave for the airport
2:15 loading kids and luggage into the car
2:30 driving to the airport
2:45 driving and realizing I forgot my iPad at my parent’s house!
3:00 checking in our bags
3:15 going through security
3:30 watching another airplane leave the gate
3:45 walking to our gate after getting “dinner”
4:00 throwing our trash away
4:15 using the bathroom before boarding
4:30 waiting to board, girls coloring, Doodle meeting new people
4:45 packing up to board
5:00 waiting in line to board
5:15 setting up Sugarplum’s CARES harness
5:30 watching Doodle desperately fight going to sleep
5:45 jostling Doodle (across Sugarplum) to try to help him get to sleep
6:00 having a snack
6:15 doing school work with Sugarplum
6:30 sitting quietly while Doodle naps, Sugarplum colors and Honeybun reads
6:45 playing Frozen Freefall on my phone
7:00 giving Sugarplum nice touches while playing Frozen Freefall
7:15 doing school work with Sugarplum
7:30 doing school work with Sugarplum
7:45 reading a book to Sugarplum
8:00 playing a word game on my Kindle after Sugarplum falls asleep
8:15 listening Honeybun tell wild stories to the woman sitting next to her
8:30/10:30 getting ready to land
10:45 waiting to get off the airplane (Doodle noticed some trucks outside!)
11:00 nursing Doodle, walking out to meet hubby
11:15 driving home
11:30 driving home
11:45 putting girls to bed
12:00 in bed!
As you can see it was a rather uneventful trip. No trouble, no drama, the kids were great. Because there were four of us (Doodle had his own seat as all babies should for safety reasons), we had to sit with Doodle in the window (because of his rear-facing car seat), Sugarplum in the middle, me in the aisle and Honeybun across the aisle (luckily we flew Southwest so were easily able to get four seats together though we had to bumble down the aisle to row 22 despite family pre-boarding!) We were very fortunate that the woman sitting next to Honeybun was super friendly and helpful and Honeybun now refers to her as “my new big person friend”. Doodle slept from a little after take off until we were making our final approach and Sugarplum was generally content.
Obviously not all flights will go so smoothly but it’s nice to have an easy one once in awhile and if I could share one bit of advice about traveling alone with kids it would be this: take it all in stride, it won’t last forever and you’ll always get where you need to go eventually!
If you want more tips for traveling with kids, check out my “Airplane Travel with Kids” posts!
