Miguelina

Voting: A cautionary tale

I need to tell you something.

That whole George W. Bush thing?

It's kind of my fault.

Well, it’s not ALL my fault, but still. It kind of is. At least it feels that way.

You see, that fateful summer of 2000 I was so busy preparing for graduate school that I forgot to vote. No, really - I had to find an apartment and a roommate, but  mostly I had to wrap my mind around the fact that I was leaving everything and everyone I knew behind to move to Virginia. You’d think I was moving to another planet. But that’s the reason that that year’s election simply wasn’t a priority. I didn’t even realize that I had forgotten to apply for an absentee ballot until I was immersed in my new life and it was too late.

To be honest, I didn’t think it was that big a deal. I’d voted for Clinton in 1996 - so what? Tons of people did. What difference was my one little vote going to make?

As much as I disliked George W. Bush, I wasn’t worried that he would win. I was pretty sure people wouldn’t vote him into office. Surely people would vote for the qualified candidate and not for the one they’d like to share a beer with?

Right?

I was so naive.

I’ll admit that I was a little surprised when I left the election night party and things weren’t settled yet. But I had an 8:00 AM class and needed to go to bed. I remember being more worried about the financial model I’d been working on all day than about the election itself.

When my radio alarm went off at 7:00 AM a voice informed that we still didn’t have a president - the election was too close to call, and the difference was 183 votes (at the time). In FLORIDA.

Did I mention that I had forgotten to apply for an absentee ballot in Miami?

(I felt very, very bad.)

Like the rest of the country, I became obsessed with the election. But unlike the rest of you, who eventually found the whole “hanging chad” issue ridiculously hilarious - it hit me to my core.

I felt so very stupid every time I saw a picture like this:

You might remember those pictures. They were everywhere.

I felt stupid a lot.

I felt sick to my stomach whenever people would discuss the Florida votes. Whether they said that it came down to 1,000 or just 40 votes in a county it was clear that every vote was precious - so precious that it was counted and recounted endlessly. But I was an experienced Florida voter and I never left any hanging chads - I knew that if only I had voted, Gore would have had one more vote that counted.

So whenever Leno or Letterman made fun of Florida voters they twisted that knife I’d stuck in my gut by choosing not to vote that year. Because those weary poll workers? Weren’t counting and recounting my vote. And it was all my fault.

People talk about Catholic guilt, but it’s nothing compared to the guilt I felt that November.

I wouldn't want you to feel like this. Don't be stupid - go out and vote.

A Very Soggy Story

With a four day weekend tantalizingly ahead of us, my husband and I discussed how we could fill that time.  A short getaway to Montreal?  Shopping for much-needed furniture perhaps?  Sleeping in?

Wrong!

While those things sound fantastic we're now knee-deep in this parenting gig and that means that our precious stretch of "free" time would have to be filled up with more important things.  Things like teaching a 2.9 year old the art of making "pee-pee" and "poo-poo" in the "potty."

(Those of you looking for some erudite discussion on...anything really should cut your loses and click away now.)

Yes my friends, this would be the weekend that our toddler would be potty trained SO HELP US GOD.

We were optimistic as we started the process Thursday morning.  We gave Sebastian his first pair of big boy pants -- teeny tiny blue Bob The Builder underpants. 

"Such a big boy!"  We cooed with proud tears in our eyes.  "No more diapers for you!  You tell us when you have to make pee-pee, OK?"

"I big boy!"  he said, and ran off to play in the living room.

My baby.  Gone!  Just like that.

Except that my husband spent the entire day changing our son's clothes and mopping the floors.  Because our big boy thought that he was supposed to tell us he had peed AFTER the fact.  He did this over and over again.

Thankfully there was a turkey keeping me busy all day, so I simply couldn't be bothered with the unsavory job of cleaning up after a pottier-in-training.  I only tell you this so I can include a picture of the fruit of my labors:

My mother asked for evidence that I can indeed roast a turkey.  This one's for you Mom! 
(and Martha Stewart)
(OK, so my Lil' Butterball looks a little bit naked.  It needs some dressing it up, don't you think?  But that's neither here nor there.)

As you may have guessed, Friday wasn't spent shopping for bargains.  I was busy sprinting between the laundry room and the potty room all while keeping Sebastian off the furniture.

Saturday was more of the same.  Except that we gave up just a tiny bit and put diapers on the boy, since we still had to catch up on all the laundry from the first two days.  Oh, and Sebastian had not pooped once since this whole ordeal began.  Things were not looking good.

I woke up on Sunday determined to give my husband the "we gave it a shot, but clearly he's not ready and we should try again later" speech because I was tired of this.  I was trying to figure exactly when "later" would be (would his 15th birthday be too late?) when Sebastian jumped up from the breakfast table and announced, "I need to go potty! I need potty!"

Off we went, and lo, there was much pee-pee and poo-poo in the potty.  And there was much rejoicing and videotaping and many long-distance calls were placed where a child's squeaky voice exclaimed:

"I use the potty!  YAY!"

And there was much flushing and very little diapering happily ever after. 

Don't you just love happy endings?

Variations on a Theme

My toddler says the most adorable things, I swear. 

While I'm convinced of his brilliance and wit (I am his mother after all) I also realize that a lot of the time what is adorable is not necessarily what he says, but how he says it.

For instance, Sebastian's latest expression is "Oh my goodness!"- it's adorable because it's the kind of thing I imagine a prim schoolmarm would say but then he says it like the toddler he is,  "Oh my guuuudness, Mama!  I drop my milk!"

You have to hear it in person to fully appreciate the cuteness.  Trust me.

Last night, we were in the car with my brother and sister-in-law and I wanted them to hear for themselves just how cute he sounds when he says it.

"Sebi,"  I said. "Can you say 'oh my goodness' for Rudy and Evelyn?"

A little voice pipes up from his car seat, "F*CK!"

Everyone in the car sat in stunned silence.  We've all heard about positive reinforcement blah, blah, blah, so we ignored him. 

Still, I shot my husband a dirty look.

"Um...I got lost in Cambridge once, and I forgot he was in the backseat," he said.  I could tell this wasn't necessarily his proudest moment in parenting.

"F***ck!  F*ck-f*ckety-f*ckety f*ck f*ck!  F*ck!  F*ck!  Freaking f*cking f*ck!  Faaaack!"

Sebastian paused and looked out the window at the lights on Newbury street.  You could hear the muffled laughter by now but we couldn't help ourselves.  He continued with his monologue without ever looking at us.

"Oh f*ck.  F*cking f*ck! F*ckety-f*ck! F***ck!  F*cking f*ckers!"

I was about to pee my pants at this point.  My husband gained a bit of composure and tried to defend himself: 

"Come on!  Have you ever tried to drive in Cambridge without navigation?"

(It didn't take very long to get some strange Google searches - so I added the asterisks, but you get the idea.)

Morocco: So Far From Suburbia III

She met us in full chador. 

How could I be sure we were meeting the same woman?  The truth is that I couldn’t, and that was part of the excitement.  That is the beauty of travel; doing things one would never do at home.  Would I follow a masked stranger into an unfamiliar alley in my hometown?  Of course not!  I would stick to safe places and routines.  Here I didn’t know what was safe and what wasn’t so it was all the same to us.

We followed her into a silent maze of streets, walls golden in the morning sun, her chador billowing in the breeze as she rushed deeper into the city.

Marrakech was like a time capsule, its history laid bare for us to see and touch, but I knew so little about it.  I wanted to learn more.

“Those are the baths,” she said in French, pointing at a crumbling building.  That was the extent of our tour.  The rest of the time we rushed behind her in silence, afraid of getting lost. 

We would see a person here and there - men dressed like wizards in full hoods and pointy shoes, women bringing laundry inside - but they never looked at us.  Still, I could feel eyes looking at us from behind curtains made from old bed sheets, so I knew we were not alone.

Eventually she stopped at a large building.  Most of it was painted light blue, then it just stopped and was cement gray.  It looked like someone had run out of paint and just left it that way.

The girl that had been with her when we got our henna tattoos was outside playing with a large sheep, trying to smooth its matted coat.  Our guide ignored the girl so we followed her inside.  The room was large enough to be a comfortable living room, but then I noticed that it was lined with twin mattresses and bedding was piled up against the wall to form makeshift couches.  There was only one door in the room – the one we had just walked through.  There were a lot of people in there and they were looking at us expectantly.  We waved shyly. 

No reaction.

Our guide went to a slight man dressed in white who was seated in a corner of the room and got on her knees.  She kissed his hands.

We looked at each other, unsure what to do.  We started to kneel when the man stood up and motioned for us to stop.

“There is no need.  It is not your tradition,” he said shaking his head.

English!  We were relieved and started to apologize for not dressing appropriately, for not having a chador, but we had just arrived and did not know where to find one…

He smiled and dismissively waved his hands.  Then he nodded at the woman who brought us to his house.  She got up and in one swift motion, took off her chador. She was a young girl – maybe 19 or so, just like us—not the older woman we had expected.  The man must have been her father.  It was then that I noticed that the other women inside the house weren’t wearing chadors either.  They wanted to make us feel at home, and for the first time, they smiled at us.

Our friend was a very pretty girl.  She had a wide, friendly smile and sparkly eyes.  She made sure we all sat down and served us tea while the rest of the family watched us from across the room.  We did our best to make conversation, but found that only the men and boys spoke English.  They asked us if we found Moroccans to be friendly and we had to laugh.  One of our friends was very popular with the taxi drivers and shopkeepers, and we had been jokingly offered up to 20 camels for her.

“She’s going for 20 camels at this point,” I said, pointing at the girl we had dubbed Ms. Morocco.

The ice was broken, and we sat down in small groups.  They asked us questions about life in Europe and America.  We asked them about life in Morocco.  They told us about the lavish weddings, and even pulled out family photo albums.  For a while, we felt right at home – all differences forgotten in the universal sharing of wedding stories.

At one point, all the men except for the father left the room.  I wouldn’t have noticed it, save for the desperate bleating of the sheep that the girl had been playing with outside.  The men dragged it to the front door and started singing as they struggled with it and held it to the ground.

Then one of the mustachioed uncles, a man who a few minutes ago had been laughing and drinking tea with us stood at the door with a large machete.  He went behind the sheep and slit its throat.  The animal’s blood spilled onto the tile floor, into our room, onto the feet of the men.  I was so shocked, I kept taking pictures (warning:  graphic, don't click on the thumbnails if you don’t like blood).

There were a few minutes of terrible silence, where my friends and I didn’t know what to do. 

This had been the reason we had seen so many sheep and goats on the train - Eid al-Adha – the family was recreating the biblical story of Abraham’s obedience when asked to sacrifice of his first-born son.  But what next?

The sheep was hung from the doorframe (our only way out for the room) so that all the blood could drain off its neck.  I couldn’t look at it anymore, and my stomach turned knowing that the logical next step was for us to eat the poor animal.  The women started lighting up coal stoves (indoors!  I was sure I would die of carbon monoxide poisoning!) and the men passed down raw cubes of meat to them. 

The meat cooked for less than five minutes, and then it was put on a plate besides some bread.  Our hosts graciously waited for us, the guests of honor, to take the first bites.

I closed my eyes and chewed into the vilest piece of meat to ever cross my lips.  To this day I cannot eat lamb without my stomach turning.

I was wrong about the carbon monoxide poisoning.  I was sure that instead I would be eaten alive by the worms that were surely infesting the undercooked meat I had just swallowed.  But what could I do?  There was a man with a bloody knife blocking our exit.

So I ate it all.

Our guide wanted to give us a gift when we finished lunch.  She gave us Moroccan makeovers and made up our eyes with her precious khol powder.  I wanted to give her a gift to thank her, so I dug into my backpack and found a gold lipstick tube.  I gave it to her, and she hugged me in gratitude. 

Soon, it was time for us to go back.  We said goodbye to our new friends, refused the offer of food for later, and headed out onto streets that suddenly didn’t seem so unfamiliar.

Children were outside playing soccer.  Upon closer inspection, I noticed that instead of balls they were kicking charred sheep’s skulls.  It was like a scene in hell's playground, but we were getting used to this strange land. 

Later that day we headed out for the Sahara.  We were done with the city and crossed the Atlas mountains, marveling at their unfamiliar vistas, to travel deep into the desert on the back of camels.  We traveled with Bedouins with only a comet to light up the dark desert sky.

PART I

PART II

Morocco: So Far From Suburbia II

(Part 1 is here)

We ate a light Tandoori lunch and drank Pepsi.  We were starting to get nervous about having traveled to this country alone.  The women hissed at us from underneath their chadors and the men simply ignored us. We stood out, a group of young female foreigners, despite wearing the most modest clothing we owned--long-sleeved shirts, baggy pants or long skirts, socks. We tried to be respectful despite the sickening heat, but the fact that we were traveling alone was seen as a threat by some of the locals.

Still, we explored the Bazaar at Djemaa el Fna and were underwhelmed by the snake charmers.  The famed dentists were nowhere to be found.  Apparently the Square only came alive at night, but we were feeling vulnerable and there was no way we were going there after dark, fire eaters be dammed.  Instead, we went into the souk and did some shopping. 

It was much friendlier at the marketplace, where every shopkeeper was eager to invite us in for mint tea – and to by the way take a look at his beautiful handmade shawls/pewter jewelry/rugs.  My friend listened to a rug salesman tell her the story of how this rug was made by his mother and that one by his wife. I wandered off while sipping my mint tea and peeked underneath a couple of rugs: 

‘MADE IN INDIA’

‘FABRIQUE EN CHINE’

Bored and not wanting to spoil her fun, I went to the spice stand and watched the shopkeeper pop in and out of a patchwork of colors like a mole, rushing to mix flavors as the shoppers barked their orders.

   

I didn’t buy anything.  But still, the Moroccans kept offering tea.  Maybe it was all the sugar, but Amy and I decided to get some henna tattoos instead of buying worthless knicknacks.  We found a woman in a black chador working on another tourist.  She had a little girl with her.  In broken French we asked the girl if her mother could work on us and the woman in the chador nodded -- maybe smiling, maybe not.  When it was my turn she quickly mixed the henna paste and set to work on my upper arm, drawing with a plastic syringe.  I didn’t know what I wanted or how to ask for it, but she got to work anyways and I was soon decorated with an intricate lotus flower.

I smiled and thanked her.  It was beautiful, even if it was not authentic.

She worked on my friend Amy in silence, and didn't speak until she was done.  We waved goodbye after we paid the girl, but the woman kept going on and on in French.  I couldn’t understand what she wanted, so I figured she wanted more money.  I pulled out a few dollars.

She refused and grew more agitated, black fabric flapping everywhere.

We gestured for her to follow us as we looked for our Belgian friend Sylvie.  We finally found her looking at some rings.  The woman in the chador spoke to her, and seemed to calm down when she realized Sylvie spoke French.

“She wants to invite us to meet her family.”

Silence.  Somebody finally said OK.

“We’re to meet her here at 7:00 am tomorrow.”

Morocco: So Far From Suburbia

My first job out of college was as a marketing assistant in the beauty industry.  Manual labor is part of the job when you're that low in the totem pole.  For me, that meant unpacking endless boxes of product samples and marketing materials--which isn’t too bad when you’re a young beauty junkie because knowing that I got to see all this stuff before everybody else was still exciting then.  A few months into the job, by the time my life of freedom was a distant memory, I was unpacking one such box.  It was full of cosmetics that weren’t available in the US and had been sent to us for possible inclusion in the duty-free assortment. 

Among the perfume bottles and pre-wrapped boxes of miniature lotions – meant for clueless businessmen looking for a last-minute gift for ‘the wife’ -- I found a long thin metal tube.  It was just a lipstick (I remembered buying one at El Corte Ingles when I was studying abroad in Granada, Spain), but it brought back memories of dusty alleys and of the sweet taste of mint tea.

I was in Morocco in April of 1997 because it’s what you did when you were an exchange student in Granada.  We first made plans for a large group, but when the guys heard that the girls in Ibiza were easy they changed their minds at the last minute.  So instead of nine, we were a group of five - all girls.

(Jorge, our student advisor, had begged us not to go.  “Five females?  In Morocco?  Alone?  Are you mad?”  He was a law student and worried too much.)

We left Algeciras on an rusty ferry boat and crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, the famous rock getting smaller and smaller behind us as we got closer to the African shore.  As soon as we docked in Tangiers everything was different --the light red and hazy, everything soaked with the smells of cooking food.  It was crowded and people came at us from everywhere.  We ignored the many offers for private taxicabs and ducked into the relative calm of the train station, rushing to catch the last train to Marrakech. 

I was relieved when the train pulled out of Tangiers.  It was dangerous and I was glad to leave.  The train was dark and I tried not to think about the condition of our cabin as I forced myself to go to sleep.

It was morning when the train reached the end of the line.  My friend Amy and I quickly gathered our things and looked for the rest of the group.  It was a madhouse and I wasn't sure how we would find them but we soon heard them.

They didn’t look good.

“What’s the deal with all the sheep?  It was like a fucking zoo in there.”

Amy and I were in much better spirits because we had snatched the last two first-class cots on the train.  For $12 we got hard benches to sleep on and shared quarters with strangers.  At least we had some semblance of privacy.  Our cabin mates were already asleep in their bunks when we entered and had left by the time we had woken up the next morning.

The rest of them were stuck in the regular cars and had to do their best to sleep while sitting up.  To make things worse, it seemed that every other person on the train was carrying either live sheep or chickens—and they did it like it was the most normal thing in the world. We didn't know it, but everyone was going home for Eid al-Adha and the whole scene was not unlike that at American airports the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, except that here people carried livestock instead of wheeled luggage.

It was still early in Marrakech and after dizzying rides in little private taxicabs we finally got to our hotel, a little hole in the wall called Hotel Ali.  It was perfect for us, cheap, clean, and most importantly, it overlooked the Djemaa el Fna square.

We were ready to explore.  One of the girls wanted to find a carpet.  I was determined to photograph a snake charmer and a Moroccan dentist.  I never got my pictures.

More here.

A Few Things Before I Go and Lose My Mind

My husband and I always thought that tackling DIY projects would be the surest way to marital troubles.  After all, neither one of us knows what we're doing so there are WAY too many opportunities to screw things up and get on each other's nerves about things and the way they should be done.

So we bought the house we did precisely because it had been updated and we only needed to do a few things.  Such as:

1.  Paint a bedroom and bathroom which had, inexplicably, been painted purple.  The rest of the house is tastefully done in Navajo White and soothing shades of green, blue and yellow - but these two rooms were a strange zombie-like purple.

2.  Put a chandelier in the dining room.  Not a big deal because we didn't even have to buy one since a chandelier had been installed, inexplicably, in the middle of the kitchen.  (I'm 5'8" and my husband is 6'2".  Needless to say, our skulls couldn't take this anymore.)

(Who needs a chandelier in the middle of their kitchen?  Our house is full of little oddities like this.)

3.  Replace the kitchen chandelier with recessed lighting to match the rest of the kitchen.

4.  Re-caulk a few spots in the two bathrooms.

And that was it.  Simple!  We'll just hire a handyman and be done with it!

So I took it upon myself, as Chief Executive Officer in Charge of All Household Operations and Negotiating Minx, to call every single handyman, painter and electrician in the Boston suburbs.  My plan was to screen a few companies, schedule a few appointments for estimates and then hire a professional based on who could give me the best quality work at the best price. 

Oh, how innocent I was!

(This is the part where experienced homeowners try to suppress a little chuckle, amused at my naive belief that I would be in charge of this process.  Ha!)

I'm convinced that home repair contractors live by a code, and that code is:  ESTIMATES?  HAHAHAHHAHA! 

Either the contractor flat-out refused to give me an estimate (or even better, they wanted me to PAY them $60 just to hear an estimate!) or they did what the handyman I ultimately hired did - they just pulled a number out of thin air and told me the work would be done in 10 hours.

In the end I spent 3 days at my house without internet access or showers, and the cost was 3 times the original estimate (HAHAHAHA!  ESTIMATE!)

I've learned my lesson.  Next time, I'll learn to love the purple.

I See Famous People: It's All Downhill From Here

Some of you may remember the time I ran into a drunk Hugh Grant at a fancy hotel in Miami, or the time I shared an itsy-bitsy table at a Starbucks with Alex Rodriguez.  If you know me in person you've doubtless heard my "I spent New Year's Eve with Madonna (at a private party- not at a concert thankyouverymuch)" story.  You may have heard that one more than once, but seriously, wouldn't you talk about that all the time too?

I used to run into famous people everywhere - Shakira at a hole-in-the-wall salon (we both got $15 haircuts), Richard Hatch and Pierce Brosnan (both at airports - guess who I was more excited to see.  Go on, guess!), Harrison Ford outside a dark South Beach alley (it was a great relief to learn that the footsteps echoing behind me belonged to Indiana Jones and not a homicidal killer.  In all seriousness, PHEW!)  Sadly, my sightings after moving here can be counted on one hand:  Jack Welch.  Ok, fine - they (it!) can be counted on one finger.  Whatever.

So you will forgive my excitement at learning that I will be meeting Donovan Patton next week.  Yes, I'm excited that I will be meeting someone who is, for all practical purposes, a cartoon character.

I'm obviously doing this for my kids because I'm a good mother.  Right!  Of COURSE it's out of pure unadulterated curiosity - will he act like the adult toddler we see on TV?  Or will he be bitter and washed out, not unlike a mall Santa? 

The world needs to know.

(Who wants to bet that Sebastian won't have a clue as to who this guy is?  Better put Blue's Clues on heavy rotation.)

Air Travel Alone With Two Under Three: Part Deux

Part 1 is here.

5.  Get Your Act Together

Listen, I know that having two kids is exhausting and that there's only so much you can do to keep your kids from screaming while on the plane.  I know.  But that's no excuse to just give up - you HAVE to be "on" at all times.  This means that you have to dress decently for the flight (you don't have to wear heels or anything, but please leave the pajamas at home.  Seriously.)  It also means that your kids, both of them, are your responsibility.  Don't let them wander off and bother the other passengers.  Don't expect others to do things for you. 

I promise you that if people see that are you doing everything in your power to maintain control of the situation, they WILL help.  People (usually other mothers but even tattooed teenage boys might surprise you) will offer to entertain the older child while you nurse the baby.  They'll find a spork for you (did you know they keep them behind the counter nowadays?  First cold medicine and now plastic eating utensils...yet, strangely I don't feel any safer while you travel.).

And this is where I give a thousand virtual kisses to all the kind strangers that helped us out on our trip.  There really are a lot of awesome people out there. 

You bet I'll never ignore another human traveling alone with kids ever again. 

6.  Be Assertive

As nice as people can be, sometimes they don't think to help.  It's classic bystander effect - in groups of people everyone assumes someone else will surely help and in the end nobody does.  Don't let this happen to you.  Pick someone and ask for help when you really need it.

Case in point:  When I got on the plane and made it all the way back to row 24, I was faced with buckling in two kids and a carry on and only having two hands.  How could I possibly manage?  I turned to a woman who was clearly thinking the same thing and asked her "would you hold my baby, please?"  I never, ever thought I would be saying this to a total stranger, but you know, desperate times.

You know what happened?  Two other passengers (one a 10 year-old kid) reached out their hands, eager to help.  It's OK to ask.  My chosen victim seemed shocked at first, but good-naturedly held Ben while I buckled in Sebastian and put my carry-on away.  She also offered to hold the baby again when we landed.

7.  Flight Attendants Are Evil. 

Have you noticed a theme here?  Most people are pretty nice, as long as they don't make a living in the travel industry.

Sure, I travel a lot and have met many wonderful and professional flight attendants.  The ones on this particular flight, however, were vicious and did their best to not only ignore me, but to make everybody's trip a living hell.  When I asked for apple juice, I handed the flight attendant a sippy cup to pour it in.  I thought I was being helpful.  She handed the sippy cup back to me, empty, then she handed me a can of apple juice AND a cup filled with ice.  I was holding an infant and my toddler's tray table was full of toys I'd brought on board to distract him.

"I don't need the cup with ice, thanks" I said as I tried to open the can of apple juice and fill the sippy cup while balancing the baby in my arms.

"You have to take it! I, DON'T. HAVE. A. PLACE. TO. PUT. IT."  she barked.  I looked at her and the beverage cart she was pushing (you know, the one where they keep the cups and the ice?) and smiled sweetly at her,  "then I guess it'll have to wait until it's time for you to pick up the garbage!  It'll be here waiting for you!"

At least I wasn't the guy sitting in row 22 who got a beverage cart rammed into his elbow.  Ouch.

8.  Dora, In Excelsis Diego

A portable DVD player loaded up with Diego DVDs will save you.  Bring it out about an hour into the flight (after the excitement of being on a plane has worn off) and you're set.  Oh, and buy a cheap one, because your toddler will keep inserting and removing the DVD and if you're going to worry about him breaking it, well that takes all the fun out of it, doesn't it?

9.  Snacks.  Snacks.  And More Snacks.

Did I mention snacks?  Because you should bring snacks.  And bring the good stuff.  This is not the time for tofu chips.

10.  Deplaning.  Or, Revenge is Sweet.

Fight the urge to make a mad dash for the exit.  You will be much happier if you wait until everyone is gone.  The kids can watch the bags being unloaded, everyone will wave at your "amazingly well-behaved" kids, and you will have time to pick up all the crap you needed to entertain the kids during the flight.

Also?

The flight attendants can't leave you on the plane.  So they will suddenly become EXTREMELY helpful, and you will have six assistants helping you out of the gate.  One will hold your toddler, the other will carry your bags, and the witch who had no room for her stupid cup with ice?  She'll assemble your stroller for you AND buckle the baby in for you.

All in the name of getting the hell out of there.

So take your time, make them work, and congratulate yourself on having survived the journey.

Air Travel Alone with Two under Three: Part One

Remember the days when I was afraid of going to the supermarket alone with the kids?

I was so naive.

I just got back from a vacation where I traveled on a commercial flight with my two kids (ages 2 and 3 months) all by myself.  I believe I may deserve a medal.

I knew sadistic flight attendants and cruel airport screeners had it in for poor mothers traveling alone.  Here are my tips for surviving if such a journey is in your future.

1.  Pack Well

Your carry-on bag is your friend.  It needs to make you self-sufficient while being lightweight.  This means you need to pack more diapers than you think you need.  (I pack one per hour of travel, including waiting time at the airport.)  This also means you need to pack every snack known to man (what if you get stuck on the tarmac for 10 hours?) but that it can't contain any fluid or have the word "paste" on the packaging.  The people at the security checkpoint are crazy - do not expect them to have any common sense whatsoever.  Once, they made my husband throw away some toothpaste because "regulations don't allow you to carry more than 3 oz of paste on board."

"There's enough toothpaste in that container for 2 toothbrushes.  That's much less than 3 oz."

"But it says 8 oz on the tube.  That's more than 3 oz."

Don't even try to argue with that logic because it can get you arrested.

2.  Security Checkpoints - Where Toddlers are Public Enemy #1

Remember that you are traveling with children - the biggest threat to the flying public after kindly old grandmothers.  That's why you only see old ladies and moms going through the "random" secondary screening.  It's also why the guy that stands at the metal detector will make you take your sleeping 3 month-old out of his stroller.  He will watch as you struggle to fold it while holding said infant.  He will stand by while a kind stranger folds the stroller for you and hurts his shoulder putting your huge carry on on the x-ray machine's conveyor belt.  He will not tell you that your toddler is wandering away.  And once you try to go through the metal detector, tickets and IDs in one hand, grumpy 3 month-old hanging precariously on the other, he will smile, point at your toddler and say "You have to take off his shoes."

Yes, he could have told you this BEFORE you took the infant out of his stroller.  Yes, he did this on purpose.  Fight the urge to kick him. They live for this shit. 

Instead, someone with some common sense (i.e. not a TSA employee) will get on her hands and knees and take off your kid's rubber sandals for you. 

Modern-day air travel requires you to check your dignity with your luggage.  Keep calm and carry on.

3.  Get Thee To The Gate

Do not purchase any magazines or entertainment for yourself.  You will not have the time.  Get yourself to the gate, but stop at the restrooms and the food court before hand.  Take the food with you to the gate.  Ask the gate agent if they could kindly seat you in a row with an empty seat.  He will give you a sob story about how the flight is full.  Sigh heavily.  Traveling sucks.

4.  Feed The Kids

Do this at the gate so your fellow passengers see that while you're crazy enough to travel alone with two children, you are not stupid enough to do it with hungry ones.

(To Be Continued...)