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Posts Tagged ‘flying with twins’

Do: break as many airline/airport/FAA rules as possible, in succession.

For example: Demand to gate-check your tandem double stroller, then take that stroller (with toddler twins strapped in) up the escalator. Yea, that’s right. When no elevator is provided, Junglemom (and Jungletwins) get badass.

Once off the escalator, feel free to leave your stroller and baggage unattended, in order to chase your twins (as they squeal with delight) through not only your own gate, but every gate on the floor, yelling after them “I’m gonna get you, little fishy!”

When you run out of open gates, feel free to carry on though gates technically closed for renovations.

Don’t pay any attention to the security guard trailing you as you do this.

Do split up your journey if it involves a whopping 3 flights, but

Don’t be surprised if at your first stop (a smaller, more heavily populated island than your own) the airport hotel isn’t serving or selling any food because “it’s Sunday.”

Do send your husband out to scrounge some food in the surrounding area, but

Don’t be surprised if he gets lost in the seedy back streets and wonders around for over an hour  before happening upon a convenience  store specializing in porn, selling natty light to 12 year olds, and- praise the lord- hostess cupcakes.

Don’t panic when you arrive at the airport for leg 2 of your journey, and find your flight has been cancelled.

Do be advised, however, that the longer it takes the airline to find you alternate flights, the more items of clothing y0ur twins will remove and throw on to the dirty airport floor.

Do attempt several distraction techniques on your longer flights: DVDs, books, toys.

Don’t be surprised when none of these distractions work for more than a few minutes at a time.

Do expect that for this long flight, and the next one right after, a lot of crying at various intervals will occur, no matter what you do.

Do feel guilt for the discomfort of the other passengers, but not too much. They will get over it much faster than you will.

Do save your pleasantries/apologies/grovelling for the flight attendants, who will not only lend a sympathetic ear, but also hook you up with 2 bottles of wine, a large chocolate chip cookie, a bag of nuts, 4 cartons of milk, and the kind offer to wash out your sippy cups.

Don’t, when you arrive at your 3rd airport, have an enormous meltdown at Chili’s, because you left your glasses at the hotel on the first leg of the journey (the one that doesn’t serve food on Sundays).

Do, when you finally reach the check-in desk at the awesome, totally accommodating hotel in your destination city, inform the lovely hotel employee that she is under no circumstances to allow you in-laws (who will arrive tomorrow) to stay in an adjoining room- no matter how they plead.

Don’t, once you arrive in your room and unpack, feel like an idiot for having a meltdown in Chili’s, when in fact you have brought your glasses after all.

Do be grateful that you have crossed one island, then another island, then an ocean, then a continent, and arrived with your tots, husband, and psyche, all in one piece :)

Happy Holidays, and happy travels!

 

 

 

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Traveling with twins has made me realize that with or without intending to, my family will inconvenience people. When you’ve got infant twins, that’s how you roll.

Its actually a blessing. I used to be mortified to hold up a line while I searched for my debit card. I used to double over clutching my heavy bags to my chest rather than setting them on the floor so I could spring forward without delay when the queue moved. Nothing could slow me down.  Nothing, but twins.

Now we wait in line with bags fanned out around us in all directions for people to trip over and lines to snarl up behind. We fluster airline employees with our 2 baby situation.  We take over entire seating sections. We spill formula and mashed banana on the floor. And we don’t give a hoot.

Honestly, most people don’t give a hoot either. Most other passengers on our other journey were overwhelmingly supportive. We were told countless times, “Your babies are so good!” “I can’t believe how good they were on the flight,” and so on.

Considering how long the flights were, the babies really were superb. Mumu was much improved from her last flight, where she spent the entire time frantically grabbing at a terrified Japanese tourist who squirmed to get away from her slobbery clutches.

The only odd thing with other passengers on the journey was that I was constantly asked, “Did you plan to have twins?” I find this question so bizarre, and I swear I was asked it 20 times at least. I assume its a clumsy attempt to find out if I took fert meds, but still. Am I missing something? Fert meds or not, aren’t twins always a surprise? Isn’t everyone trying to have one baby but some of us are lucky enough to get a bonus one? Who’s “planning” twins?

Oh dang, the girls are awake and I’ve gotta go and I haven’t had time to talk about all the snowy, cidery New England fun we’ve been having. Next post, I promise!

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Okay, so living on a remote tropical island where my twins are the only twins I’ve seen means the little ladies get a lot of attention when out in public. That’s fine. Overwhelmingly it is good attention, interspersed with a little weird attention, and every once in a while a bit of bad attention Crazy Train. Whatever, we can all handle that. Sometimes, however, a tricky situation arises when good attention suddenly turns bad- when people you don’t know overstep the line. Do other Moms experience this?

It always happens to me at airports. People get crazy and grabby at airports. This makes me knuckle-cracking nervous and borderline panicky because I never forget for a jungleminute that my twinnies are preemies. Preemies have delicate little systems, delicate little lungs, and as big and strong as they seem to me now at 8 months, I’ll never forget the sight of my 3lb 2oz spider-limbed Lulu, and the fact that they are still at risk until about the age of 2, and all the intensity and preemie complications I felt and witnessed at the NICU. We’ve been lucky as heck, knock on wood, no major respiratory infections, ear infections, etc. I attribute some of it to luck, a lot to breast milk, and even more to hosing down visitors in purell. A few weeks ago I slipped up, relaxed my standards with a visiting friend, and we all ended up with the worst cold in jungle history, the one I’ve been whining about for days on end.

Anyway, so at the airport on Thursday a pair of cute and friendly older Japanese ladies stopped by to see the girls. We don’t speak Japanese and they didn’t speak English, but we pretty much understood eachother. They thought Lulu looks more like me and Mumu looks more like Jungledad, etc. Its was all going well, then the grabbing started. Out of no where they started grabbing hands and faces. Red light flashing! Alarms! Germs everywhere! BeepBeepBeepBeepBeep! Step away from the babies! Of course, there were no alarms. I just froze in fear and didn’t do didley. I wish people wouldn’t touch babies without permission. I hate to be uptight about it but I am.

That incident wasn’t as bad as the last airport incident though. That one really freaked me out. We were flying to New England to visit relatives. It takes many flights and about 36 hours to get to my Mum’s house from here, no joke. Anyway, so we were zombie faced at the San Francisco airport, wandering around with the dread of several more hours in the journey, when we plopped down to have a rest and were immediately pounced upon. Out of no where, a young Korean couple with an expensive video camera dragged their heavy airport chairs across the terminal until they were inches away from us, then stuck the camera in the babies faces and started filming. The twins were still tiny at that point, around 3 months old but still smaller than the average newborn, and I was really freaked out. Way over the line. We moved to different chair but they followed us, kept following us. Due to the language barrier, our words were not understood. We couldn’t shake them until we walked to a airport cafe and sat down in a booth. The whole experience really shook me up. I don’t think that couple meant to bother or upset us, but did they ever. They were so excited to see twins, to film twins, that their enthusiasm seriously clouded their judgement.

Does this stuff happen to other Moms of twins?

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