Traveling with kiddos

This is random, but I've been Googling "Hawaii with kids" recently in anticipation of a potential trip next year, and what a big bunch of whiny whiners there are out there.

Look, I know traveling with kids, especially the little kids, can be a PITA. Seriously. They have so much stuff you need to take along: diapers, TSA-unfriendly creams, heavy car seats, extra clothes, blankets, snacks, wipes. People shoot you the look of evil when you get on the plane, especially as you approach their seats.

But if you can't take simple reasonable precautions to travel with your kids, then I think you should shut the hell up and stop giving advice.

For example: I just read a blog entry about a couple who took their 25-month-old to Hawaii from New York. That's a fourteen hour plane trip, same as what we spent on the plane with A going to Italy. So how did it go?

Well, not good. First of all, they lied to the ticket agents about the kid's age so he could travel as a lap child. This was to save money (I assume).

When we went to Italy, A was eight months old, twenty pounds, and would have legally qualified as a lap child. And we still ponied up the money for a seat for him. And not because we love the airlines so much that we wanted to give them lots of money.

C and I ran it by a basic litmus test: In the comfort of our home, would we be comfortable holding him (both awake and asleep) in our laps for the same duration of time? And our answer was an emphatic, "Hell no." Heck, we wanted to be able to sleep on the plane, and when you've got a baby in your arms, it's difficult to fall asleep yourself without pitching the baby on the floor. We bought the seat for him, tucked him into his car seat, and he slept most of the time.

By the same litmus test, I can't imagine holding a two-year-old in my lap for longer than fifteen minutes without an argument, let alone fourteen hours.

I know that for the next big trip, we'll have two and it'll be exponentially more difficult, but we'll just keep to the same litmus tests and proceed sanely. Heck, what I know is that traveling once the kid is mobile is a helluva lot harder than traveling when they pretty much stay put. I'm crossing my fingers that if this trip to Hawaii happens next year, it'll be before Baby 2.0 is walking. And thank God we won't have two toddlers at the same time. Yikes. Mothers of twins, I salute you.