Rolling with the punches : Part 1

Alrighty, carving out some me time this Monday morning while Livi is at nursery and Ben is taking a nap. Truly loving this new project :)

So today's post will be about the not so fun moments of traveling with little ones. I'm sitting here trying to find a good order and flow to which to write this without sounding too whiny. ;)

I have been wondering- why do I handle certain difficult situations the way that I do? I'm a laugher instead of a crier (most times). When a moment is out of this world hard, I tend to laugh instead of cry without consciously choosing to. Why is this? It didn't take long to figure out! Two words- My Mom!

The other day when I started thinking of all of the various travels taken and which ones stand out as trying, I thought of a trip with my Mom and 3 little siblings.

We were moving back to the States from Belgium after being there for 8 years. My stepdad had already moved back and it was just My Mom, myself (then age 18), Abby (then age 6) and the twins Matt and Emily (then age 4). We went from Belgium to Newark first and then Newark to Orlando. The flight from Belgium to Newark was 6 hours (which at the time felt very long) present day, I'd say that is a nice short flight :)

The flight- I can't at all remember but the layover in Newark- I look back on and SMILE.. not because it was a 'joyous' experience but because of how we handled a 'hellish' one.

The scenario goes as so:

We land, go through customs with 3 very tired kiddos, go to get our luggage (which was A LOT considering we were moving back after many years)- I'd say there were 8 suitcases. My Mom was holding the twins hands, Abby was with me and I was unsuccessfully pushing a cart with 8 suitcases piled one on top of the other. At one point, a couple of the suitcases fell from the pile onto the floor. Other travelers witnessed this and proceeded to not help put the bags back up, but rather, step around them or over them. Each time this happened, my Mom and I just looked at each other and smiled -but like a super irritated, 'are you kidding me?' kind of smile. Really humans? Really? You can't help a girl out and offer to pick up the luggage? Not cool. Strike 1 for us!

So by the time we got everything sorted again, it had taken so long and was so busy in the airport, we missed our connecting flight. The twins were so tired they fell asleep, so my clever Mama had two blankets. She put the twins on top of the blankets and pulled these sleeping sweethearts throughout the airport on the blankets hahahahaha! AMAZING Mama strength. Strike 2 for us!

Next, we have to go in an elevator (by this point the twins are awake). I am still pushing the damn luggage. As we come out of the elevator there is this cardboard cutout of a pilot (or something along those lines) and BOOM, I hit the stupid thing and all 8 suitcases topple to the floor. Strike 3 for us!

My Mom and I look at each other again and just LAUGH AND LAUGH AND LAUGH ! The kind of laugh that hurts your stomach! What else are you gonna do?

Thank you Mom for the positivity and making even hellish adventures worth while, meaningful and memorable! Cheers to you for always being amazing!

Lets flash forward to present day and being a Mom myself and I'll share a few REALLY upsetting times during traveling. I will start with the worst story first :(

In February 2017, Will, Livi and I had to go back to Idaho for emergency leave. Because we had to get back last minute, we didn't fly direct. We had about a 24+ hour journey ahead of us. Going there was fine but the flight back to Dubai, I'll remember forever. Leaving my family that time around, was the most difficult 'see ya later' because we all needed each other. Leaving them was heartbreaking so the trip back already had a sour start. The trip was: Boise- Chicago. Chicago- Berlin. Berlin- Dubai. On our flight from Chicago to Berlin, it was Livi's nap time (she was 17 months). I wanted her to go to sleep right away so as soon as we took off I fed her and tried rocking her to sleep. She was a little reluctant and she started crying a little bit (this kid is an awesome traveler and very rarely makes any noise). An older man in front of me stood up and very domineeringly looked at me and shook his head at me like I was the worst person in the world. I said, "Sir, are you shaking your head at my daughter?" He said, "Yes I am." He sat back down and I let it go. After another 10 minutes, he turned back around and shouted to us, "You are terrible parents." I very RARELY swear but the Mama bear came out of me. I couldn't even bring myself to look this man in the eye, and I said to Will, "Who the f*ck does he think he is...Will, say something!" I felt my whole body fill with rage and in that moment instead of 'rolling with the punches' like I normally do, I straight up wanted to punch him in his face."

My husband calmly said, "Sir, we would really appreciate a little patience. Its our daughter's nap time, she is tired, we have been traveling a lot, and we are trying to get her to sleep. This is a long flight and if you feel like you can't handle it- there's the exit" hahah.. oh man!

That was that!

Livi didn't make a peep after she fell asleep, the man never said a thing the rest of the flight and all of the other passengers complimented Livi on how well behaved she was at the end of the flight. I so badly wanted to be brave enough to tell this man, "Next time you want to judge and insult parents, think to yourself, 'Why are they traveling'? It's not always for a holiday. It can be for the worst and most heartbreaking of reasons and to be cruel like that just isn't necessary and it doesn't change anything except make a young couple and new parents upset. Why do that? And also, it doesn't make us bad parents to travel with a young kid. I think it is one of the coolest things a parent can do. And at the end of the day, I need to shake comments like that off because I know the truth and I know nice from mean and getting upset over mean people, isn't worth it.

Anyway, good news about flying, you never have to see those mean people again.

I will end part 1 here because there are a few more experiences we have had that have been eventful and I want to go into detail on those. So I will leave this post with 2 stories- one from my teenage years and 1 from adulthood. While I didn't laugh this one off, the other stories I will share in the next post, I do! Thank you to whoever is reading! This has been super fun and therapeutic for me so thanks for joining in on the ride.

Here are some pics from that pretty awful trip (we are still smiling)

Boise to Chicago

Chicago-Berlin (the bad flight) We are smiling because we are almost there!