The Long Trek Home

After a long week, we needed to travel back home. It didn’t help that my 4 year old son C had a hurt foot and needed to be carried since he couldn’t put any weight on it. Luckily, my wife and her parents helped with the majority of the packing and cleaning, so I ended up just shuttling us to the airport and taking care of logistics.

When we got to the airport, I helped unload the car and left everyone at the terminal so I could return the rental car. Once I got back to the terminal, it was hectic. There were so many people buzzing about that I didn’t know where any of the lines started and ended. It was a frenzy to tag the bags, drop them off, and then take oversized baggage to another location. Once we did that, I needed to carry C through security while juggling getting the stroller through the checkpoint. Luckily my 6 year old daughter E was basically self sufficient and my baby boy L was being a great traveler with Mommy holding him.

Thank goodness for TSA Precheck since we were through the chaos after some long stretches of juggling. Plenty of time to catch our flight. The only issue was that my in laws did not have TSA Precheck and were stuck in regular security. The situation got more and more stressful as they did not answer their phone and were stuck in the void of people.

My wife and I made a game time call that she would take L and wait for her parents while I shuttle E and C to the gate (while trying to get food if there was time). I hustled and ended up having enough time to grab food for everyone, but was at the gate waiting and waiting. As the time got closer to departure, my wife wasn’t answering her phone and we had about 10 minutes left. I just resigned to the fact that we were missing this flight with three young kids and infrequent flights home.

Through some miracle, my wife called me back a minute later and said they were close. They hustled and we barely made the flight together. I didn’t have time to take the kids potty before the flight took off, but it was a small price to pay to get everyone on the flight with food. I ended up having to take the kids back to back to the potty mid-flight, but again, it was a small price to pay to get everyone on the flight with food! You can never be too early to the airport with that many kids and people traveling, so that was a lesson to learn. Another lesson to learn was to always travel with TSA Precheck. I was glad and exhausted to be on that flight and thankfully a few hours later, we touched down at home. What a trip with the whole family. We did it.