Vacation Voyage: Ready, Set…

T-minus "x" number of hours until the taxi picks us up for our family trip to Greece. That's the thought that has been occupying my mind all week. While I'm at work, while I'm at home, and everything in between. We've never taken an excursion like this before. We've brought our toddler to visit family in various places in our US, but never to an entirely different country (getting her passport was an adventure in and of itself). Therefore, I've thrown myself into researching this trip. To a non-parent, researching may mean finding great restaurants and local attractions at the stops we'll be making. I know because as a former non-parent, that’s what I used to do. But that’s not the type of research I've been doing for this trip.

Research now means discovering methods of getting my child through a trans-Atlantic flight without her melting down entirely. As we all know, this is a distinct possibility — I'm sure we’ve all been on plenty of flights with children that completely lose it on the plane. The kids that suddenly decide they would rather do anything on earth than continue to sit in the seats assigned to them and then proceed to run up and down the aisle wildly. Then you hear the flight attendant announce that the captain has turned on the "fasten your seatbelt" sign and all passengers must return to their seats, and you watch the look of panic flash across the parents' faces as they understand what is now expected of them. My goal is to not be that parent. 

I've spoken to every friend I know that has taken a long flight with her children and I've ready many articles on how to manage kids on flights. Here’s what I’ve uncovered so far:

• Roll with it all: it will be what it will be and it will all be okay.
• Bring a new toy on the flight and introduce it.
• Make sure your child is drinking something at take off and landing, as it helps with ear pressure.
• Let your child play with everything in his or her immediate space on the plane and discover every nook and cranny before attempting to put your child to sleep.
• Bring something comforting from home to sleep with.
• Bring toys, coloring books, snacks, and a DVD player with extra batteries (and DVDs).
• Throw all your bedtime/naptime expectations out the window — as kids will be too wired to oblige.

Once my friends gave me these guidelines, the next several days were consumed with making list upon list to attempt to get all the gear associated with this advice. My husband and I took a shopping trip last weekend to start to gather this loot, and I’m too embarrassed to tell you the total cost of our shopping (let's just say it was about the amount of our Christmas shopping bill). Apparently planning isn’t cheap.

But, planning has brought me peace of mind to a certain extent. Though I am still worried about the trans-Atlantic flight, I do feel better now that we have our newly purchased DVD player, Dora and Elmo DVDs, enough sunscreen to cover our child everyday head to toe for a month (and we’re only going for a week) and aqua socks to make sure she doesn’t slip while in the pool area, where she will also be wearing her newly purchased swim vest. Maybe I’m being a little nutty about all this, a little crazy. Maybe I’m just taking the whole thing waaaaaaaaaaay too seriously. The thing is, I have no way of knowing until the trip is over. Once I have 20/20 hindsight, all the questions I have in my head right now will be answered and I’ll know what was a good use of my time and what I stressed about that I didn’t need to. But until that point comes, all I have at my disposal to attack this process is my ability to plan. And so, heigh-ho, it’s off to plan I go…

I wanted to take a second and say thank you to all my friends and family who imparted their wisdom and advice. Thank you for allowing me to ask the same question several times using different wording, and thank you for allowing me to talk about nothing else for this entire week. I promise to keep you all posted on how it went and what worked.

Author: Amy

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