On the Road Again: A Short Lived Epiphany

We are away for a little holiday this week in Melbourne. Jason's parents are here for business and we flew down last night to meet them. What a lovely city!

As you might imagine, living in Australia and having family back in the US, we've flown quite a bit with the kids, enough that I consider myself somewhat of a non-amateur in this area. (I won't say expert, cause I find that intimidating, don't you?) Either way, I have complex, multi-layered strategies for trans-oceanic flights with babies, toddlers and preschoolers. But yesterday as we went through security at Sydney airport, I had an Epiphany.

For starters, I only had ONE carry-on, and it did NOT weigh 147 pounds. Secondly, Ava and Nate each had their own backpacks--THAT THEY ACTUALLY CARRIED. Like, I mean, I didn't end up hauling their bags around in addition to my own. Thirdly, no one freaked about having to go through the metal detector on their own, laying on the floor in protest. Fourthly, I didn't have to take a sleeping baby out of a stroller or a Baby Bjorn to send it through the metal detector. (The stroller or Bjorn, not the baby, of course, though I have been tempted to do so--who wants to wake a sleeping baby, after all?) We breezed through to the gate, and I said to Jase, "This is what it's like--traveling with older kids. It's so much easier!" I felt like a burden was being lifted from my shoulders. Now, the days leading up to a flight possibly wouldn't be filled with plotting, planning and pleading for divine favor from the hand of God. (Which we have received many times. God is cool like that.)

I felt an incredible lightness of being for a moment. That moment came to an end when the baby I am currently gestating decided to play "Dance Dance Revolution" atop my bladder. "Right," I murmured to myself.

Soon, I will be back to the days of Baby Bjorning through security, hoping that breastfeeding will contain the magic sleep solution, stuffing burpcloths, diapers, and pureed whatever into every available container. Soon I will stop packing magazines or books to read on flights, which I'd only recently begun to do again. Soon I will eat only what the kids don't eat on flights, cause who needs to be stuck with a tray over their laps when explosive whatever could come at any moment? Soon, traveling with 3 small kids, I'll be the object of pity and/or scorn by most who see me at an airport. (The former will work in my favor, the latter will be obliterated by my lethal Stinkeye.)

But I don't mind so much. I know all too well how incredibly blessed we are to be having another baby, and I also know how privileged we are to be able to travel as we do. So, I will do it all with a smile. Or a grimace. But ya know, at 3am, in a dark plane over the Pacific, you can't really tell the difference between the two.