Ah, The Joys Of Airplane Travel With Children

Especially during the holidays! Ah, the humanity! I remember a time when it was fun to fly, and I realize how that dates me.

But come with me down memory lane for a moment: people could walk you into the terminal and hang out with you at the gate, which made for great goodbye and hello kissing scenes. I remember a TV movie once years ago where a couple went to the airport just so they could kiss wildy in public and have it be acceptable -- they called it the "goodbye game" and they just kept moving from gate to gate. But I digress.

Anyway, nowadays it's an endurance test as you navigate parking lots or taxi cabs, shuttle buses, check-in lines, and security screenings: a test of anyone's patience, for sure, but especially so for those of us with kids.

Kids aren't very good at waiting, even when it's for something fun, so waiting in line just to be told to take off your shoes, take that jacket off, Mister, and where's your boarding pass? Torture!

I once traveled as a solo parent (my husband had to work, and believe me, he owed me for a long time) from LA to DC with my then 4-year-old and my then 6-month-old. And you might think that was only 5 years ago, but  can tell you it aged me more years than that!

I had the baby in the Bjorn, a folding stroller, all the gear one might normally associate with scaling the Andes, and my eldest son's hand in mine. As we went through security, right when they made me take the baby OUT of the Bjorn in order to prove I wasn't doing anything dangerous, my eldest took off through the metal detector and beyond. He'd had enough, apparently.

I freaked out as you might imagine, and ran after him, juggling the baby, and then had to run frantically back to collect all of our crap stuff -- OMG I was a wreck! And although of course I'm not proud to admit it, at the time I felt like screaming at my 4-year-old was appropriate. I became one of THOSE moms.

So now that my kids are older -- 5 years older each -- they are now way more self-sufficient. I swear we still travel like we're going on an expedition, but now they carry their own backpacks and I'm down to my one -- albeit extremely heavy -- carry-on. And they can use their legs to move themselves, at least; no more carrying them! Still, it's pretty unpleasant getting through the airport.

Of course I realize security trumps comfort, but I do miss the old days. So my husband and I (yes, he's coming along on this trip) made a pledge this morning as we got ready to head to head out the door on our holiday trip: we promised to do our best to NOT be THOSE parents on this trip. That no matter how stressed-out the airport lines were making us, we wouldn't yell at the kids, even when they weren't listening to us when we've said something for the umpteenth time, or when they fought over who was touching whom, again. We promised to take deep breaths instead.

So far, so good, but hey, we're still in the air! I'll let you know how we did when we finally get home.

This is an original post for the LA Moms Blog.

When she's not traveling like a pack mule with her family, and sometimes while she IS, Sarah blogs at MarVistaMom and at Sarah'sBlog.