Our (Not So) Super Summer Vacay, Part II

{Read Part I here}

When Lynzee dropped the three of us off at the airport in Kansas City Sunday morning, I knew I was in for it. For some reason, I had it in my head that transporting myself, a 4-year-old, an almost-2-year-old in a car seat attached to a Go-Go Travelmate, a Canon backpack, a Zag bag beach bag stuffed to the gills, a roller carry-on barely small enough to be considered a carry-on, and a backpack that was too heavy for said 4-year-old to carry was going to be a breeze.

How ridiculous the corners of our mind can prove to be.

I was able to move about 9 inches per minute. For those of you dying to know, that is approximately 0.009 mph. In other words, not very fast.

Then, there's the tricky issue of maneuvering around the airport. Common sense tells me to find the nearest empty bay of chairs, lose all my gear, and wander with the girls. However, if I chose to do that, I'd promptly be tackled by an army of security specialists, handcuffed, and coined the next Jihad Jane. For reals.

Instead, I am glued to my belongings in addition to my children. Little A decided it would be a scream (I almost wrote pun intended but then I read this. Warning- not for the faint of heart or vernacular. Did I mention I ♥ DMB?)... Anyway, Little A thought it would be a scream to spend the entire time we sat waiting to board, well, screaming at the top of her lungs.

Fun times.

They announced that our flight would be delayed about 45 minutes. Fine. After what felt like an eternity, they called us by name to pre-board. I suppose everyone in the terminal was sick of hearing our sh*t. I hobbled on over, up the runway, down the extraordinarily narrow aisle with two appendages children to our seats. Once there, I was forced to unpack and repack our rolling carry-on so as to make it fit in the overhead compartment. We finally sit, I get the kids situated, and find it fit to exhale.

Then, Mr. flight attendant comes up and informs me that they just received word the plane would be delayed another hour or so, and we had to deplane... with every.single.belonging.

Thanks, American Airlines.

I finally found a nice couple who offered to "watch" our bay of luggage so that I could take the girls to the restroom and for a snack. A bottle of water, some apple slices and cheese, a small melon cup, and $17 later, we were set. Until it was time to board again.

At this point, I am secretly wishing that the flight attendants stocked White Dog. Just kidding... I didn't even know what White Dog was until the 4th of July party, but who's keeping track?

Being a prepared Mama, I had searched Lawrence high and low for some sort of long-lasting candy that was sans red dye. No red dye for us, remember? Low and behold, watermelon (green) and blue raspberry ring pops have none of the stuff. So, I sacrificed our cleanliness and gave each of the girls a ring pop to slobber over for the flight. Worked wonders...

Until we landed, the ring pops were nothing more than puddles of colored drool, and we were stuck on the tarmac for an hour waiting for a free gate. At this point, the 12+ hour drive to Chicago sounded awfully manageable.

Once we hobbled off the plane (last, I might add), we began crawling to the baggage claim area at O'Hare. I won't go into the gory details for fear of SRS showing up at my door, but I most certainly did not exit security with one of my children, leaving the other one stranded on the other side of the ridiculously fast revolving doors with an attendant yelling at me that there was absolutely no re-entry. Nor did I practically burst into tears when a nice older gentleman brought my other child through and stated that he's been there, done that (way to make me feel better), but not before turning to the attendant and ripping her a new, well, we won't go there...

There's logic behind my opinion of the ridiculousness of the entire security set-up at that airport, but I just don't have the energy to go there.

We were finally greeted by Auntie Kelli and Uncle Randy, and it was due time for our SSV to find course on the upwards path.

After all, Baby Tucker awaited us at our next destination...