January 16, 2018

Dear Babies,

Ok, so the single most scary thing about being in Florida with you two and without your dad was the idea of flying home with both of you. Let me start by saying this: you were both a delight to fly down to Florida with BUT flying, at the best of times, is a hands- full job. With kids it’s damn near impossible to not have 4000 things in each hand at all times. You basically need a finger per item and even then… Disassembling and then folding up the stroller at the gate with a baby hanging on to you for dear life and a crying toddler who both “doesn’t want to go on an airplane” and yet can’t stop trying to run away ON TO THE AIRPLANE by herself is a job for 2.

It was so daunting in fact, that it coloured my final days of vacation (I say the word vacation loosely as I imagine vacation to be me laying down for 5 minutes with a mimosa and a book – none of which happened. Ok, fine, I’m lying. I slept a ton but what the hell else was I doing????). So the day arrived and in spite of my efforts to prepare and prepare again, I left the house without my sweatshirt – just to get things started.

But with all that being said and contrary to my wild imagination of what was going to happen, things could not have gone better. You were both total fucking pleasures to fly with and the 3 hours flew by with not one single tear shed. Naps were missed and I’m sure the cabin crew had about 700 million cheerios to clean up but my kids were happy and so I was happy and so the whole damn world should be happy.

Here were my tricks:

1. Never stop eating. I fed these kids until I could feed them no more. Pouches, cookies, crackers, cheese, hummus… you name it, we ate it. If you’ve ever fed a kid you know how long and drawn out that process can be but for once, it was awesome to spend 45 minutes on a package of pretzels.

That was it. There were no apps, no TV shows, no movies, no books, no stickers, no colouring pages, no dolls, nada. I packed everything under the sun to entertain everyone and instead we just shoved our faces full of food until we landed.

Am I supermom? Well, yes but that’s another story for another time. I’m not supermom for flying with 2 kids, I’m just a mom doing the best she can with what she’s got and here are the 2 things I learned in this experience.

1. There is no sense in anticipating how something is going to be. Your dad always tell me that I can’t predict the future even when I’m sure I know how something will happen – and as much as I hate to admit it, he’s right. There was no point stressing over this flight that I was certain would be a disaster because I am not a fucking psychic and I had no way of knowing anything. So why the stress?
2. Even if it had gone as badly as I would have predicted – so what? How many things in our lives go awry in ways we can and can’t predict and how much of it matters. If my kids were total terrors and the 3 hours was a total nightmare – what then? Would it really matter? Would me thinking about it beforehand make a difference? Likely not so why the fuck should I care? The answer is that I shouldn’t so moving forward, I won’t.

I’m officially giving myself permission to stop giving a shit about stupid stuff and I encourage you both to do the same. There will be a zillion bad flights, a zillion good ones and everything in between and all we can do is climb on board, buckle up and try to enjoy the ride (with food).

xo

Mom