the flight(s) that adventure built

A few weeks ago we flew to my native land (Kentucky) and I was super excited, but accompanying that excitement was a small to medium wave of pure terror because of Rad stinking Miller. I was pretty sure Rhett would be okay because he's sort of out of the restless body syndrome, but Rad is not and he is a large boy and once he starts flailing and kicking...watch your teeth that you happen to like.

So after the 1001st emotional meltdown because his blankets touched Rad or Rad looked at his blankets or I didn't let Rad put toys down my shirt, I popped open some fancy dollar store toys told them to please figure it out. 

Several minutes later we some how ended up with this seating arrangement.

The lap child gets a chair and the adult get's the crack between the chairs. 

But hey it kept the peace! On an airplane I will do almost anything to keep everyone happy. Try me. 

We were smarty pants and got a direct flight from Phoenix to Louisville. All in all it was a great flight, really, truly, the boys did great. As mentioned above, we weren't above bribery and had picked up a few toys from the dollar store that we brought out over the 3:30 hour flight. It was my genius moment for the year. I won't have another one till 2015.

As we were doing the final descent I was feeling pretty darn good. We were happy, we hadn't had to breakout the extra clothes and the people around us seemed content or they were doing an awesome job of faking it.

Rad could sense that the trip had gone too smoothly. Too smoothly.

WHAT IS ......

NO.

NOT THAT.

No, please no.

No no no no no no no no no.

But YES.

It was precisely that...a diaper malfunction.

That just kept coming

And coming

And coming.

Try yelling "you're peeing on me, you're peeing on me!" on a plane and see how many people turn around and stare. (Hint: A lot.) Bonus...it looked like I peed MY pants. #shame.

Because we were literally 10 minutes from touching down, we only managed to get a new diaper, sans pants, on Rad and mop up the puddle that had collected under my leg on my seat.

When we finally got off the plane we opted to just book it to baggage claim rather than navigate the over flowing restroom by our gate. Looking back it's pretty funky that I opted to wear the super soaked jeans over changing, but the priority was more on grabbing the rental car and letting the boys take their long over due naps. We'll call it taking one for the team, makes it sound a little better.

And then the line for the rental car was about 10 people more than 2. Cavalierly I opted to take the boys and get all 6 bags (over packers anonymous...call me....) by myself while Jake waited in line for the car. Thankfully the boys stayed close while the crowd went into Lord of the Flies mentality looking for their bags. You know how it is. Everyone is anxiously sidestepping, ever so discreetly inching and cutting in for the prime baggage claim location, right where the suitcase comes out.

Once I had collected all the bags, the boys were finished with staying close and began to run. Really I don't blame them...I wanted to run away too. Jake had progressed a smidgen closer to the counter so it became a race of me preventing the escalator emergency stop button from being pushed (Rad) and other people's suitcases from being taken off the other baggage claim belts (Rhett). All while making sure TSA didn't mistake our unattended bags as suspicious and malicious.

Then the blessed event occurred, we got the keys to the car. So long airport, it's was real and it was fun, but it wasn't real fun.

(More to come on the actual trip in another post. I know, I know you can hardly stand to wait. I feel the same way when I'm waiting for my Instagram to load.)

So we had a great time with my family and after a week packed up all 6 bags and headed back to the airport. I'm sure TSA was thrilled to see us and our numerous sippy cups and bottles of milk. Just keeping you on your toes officer. But! I would be remiss if I didn't give mention to the amazing TSA people who let us go through the (much shorter) family line and who didn't bat and eye when Rhett hesitatingly started to take his shirt off before passing through the security scanner. Mucho mucho gracias friends.

Our flight from Chicago to Phoenix was completely full which meant that Rad had to be an actual lap child on my lap again. To say it couldn't have gone worse is the understatement of my life because he was the stereotypical hellion that all passengers boarding flights with children tend to hate. In his defense to say he was over tired would be the second understatement of my life.  

He 

• pitched fits in the aisle 
• threw my phone down 78 times 
• threw the open bag of pretzels down 79 times 
• creepily stroked the gentleman in front of us balding head 

and 

• even went in for a hairy head kiss before Mean Mom swooped in
• refused to even think of taking a nap
• also ate a decent part of a tube of Chapstick while his parental figures watched. Thoughts of possibly needing to call Poison Control don't happen when you're trapped 3 miles above the ground in cylindrical tube with 114 people who you know loath the night your offspring was conceived. 

He also

• screamed for "mama!!!!" when Jake held him and then screamed for "dada!!!!!" when I held him/pinned him to my person against his will

Rhett did pretty well once we learned if we lowered the trays and put a blanket over them that he would contently lay on the floor in his "fort" and play with our phones or toys. And the flight got much better after the soon to be sainted people behind us started to play peek-a-boo with Rad. Bless their children loving heart's they really were an in-flight game changer. 

We landed in the blessed, 115 degree desert and both boys passed out after being in the car for 3 seconds thus proving our crazy theory that not-quite-two-year-olds and not-quite-four-year-olds do still REALLY need naps to survive the elements.

And that parents need a private jet to survive a cross country flight. Wishful thinking at it's finest.