Air Travel and Mommy Brain Don't Mix

I am typing this from 35,000 feet as my baby sleeps in the chair next to me, M is building a Lego car with Chris, and E is asleep in the window seat on the other side of the aisle. I was expecting pure pandemonium flying with these three boys, but after a few initial glitches the sailing is smooth. Unfortunately, the glitches were completely my doing…first off, I forgot E’s beloved Raffi at Grandma’s house (I can only imagine how angry he is going to be with me tomorrow), and even worse, I realized at the check in counter that I had left my wallet (complete with photo ID) in the diaper bag at home in the hall closet. I guess it could have been worse - I could have forgotten a kid or something, but amazingly, the ticket agent acted like it it was no big deal and happened all the time. She marked me as a security check and we were on our way. I had to get specially screened at security (including a hand search of my bag and a full body pat down) but the security guy brought me to the front of the line and I beat Chris (who had all three boys, a stroller, my laptop, and full pockets of keys, phone, etc.) out of the checkpoint. I was expecting to be taken to a private room and strip searched, so after a female agent did a ten second pat down I was almost ebullient as the other agent was checking my bag pocket by pocket. So, for those of you in a rush to catch your next flight - you’ll get though security a lot faster - and maybe a lot less painfully - if you “forget” your ID.

M has been amazingly good on the plane and I have decided all those hours of learning how to deal with car boredom while driving back and forth from home to the Cities has paid off for us. He has read some books, played with his cars, studied the airline emergency card, and gotten to know all the flight attendants and passengers surrounding us. He was so difficult to fly with last year. Thank goodness he seems to be outgrowing his difficult behavior.

We will get into San Francisco at 1am our time, so we will spend the night there before we head down to San Jose to see family tomorrow. Chris reserved a room at a hotel at the end of the airport runway - so we should be able to sleep in tomorrow while the boys watch all the airplanes landing. I love cheap entertainment.