Back from Vacay

My poor blog is like a ghost town, I haven't updated in 2 weeks! I just got home last night from 2 weeks in Jacksonville so at least I have a good excuse.

The kids and I went and visited Mark's cousin Crystal and had a great time. We were on the go non-stop. She has 3 kids the same age as my 3, and it was very interesting (for lack of a better word) doing stuff with 6 kids in tow. We went to the beach a few times, to the library, to the pool, to the zoo, shopped a few times, and even got to visit Crystal's husband Will's Naval ship. THAT was way cool.

Flying alone with 3 young kids, however, was NOT the most fun experience. We flew from Buffalo to Charlotte, then from Charlotte to Jacksonville. Nolan was a big helper with Kaia and Pierce, and they were all pretty good, but Pierce did not want to keep his seatbelt on during landing. The first flight him and Nolan sat in 2 seats in front of Kaia and I and I had to lean forward and hold his hand to try and calm him down. I ended up having to switch him and Kaia's seat so I could hold him down in the seat beside me while he screamed his head off. The second flight was the same, except we had a better arrangement of seats. We had 3 seats in a row, and one across the aisle. Nolan sat in the aisle seat while I sat with Kaia and Pierce and again held Pierce down during landing while he screamed. Not really a "horrible" experience, but definitely not one I would voluntarily do again on my own!!

Then came the flights home. That was probably the worst experience of my life. It makes me so mad and upset just thinking about it. The first flight was from Jacksonville to Charlotte, and it left at 8pm. I knew with the late flight it wasn't going to be too fun because the kids would be sleepy. That flight wasn't too bad, but Kaia and Pierce fell asleep which started a whole trickle effect of issues. Somehow I had to carry 2 sleeping kids off the plane (we were seating 2 rows from the back no less). I had asked the flight attendant if she could get the stroller from the front for me, and she didn't. I was in a hurry to make it to our next flight because we landed late, so I somehow managed to pick up Kaia (who is about 41 lbs), who was sleeping, AND pick up Pierce (he's 28lbs), who was also sleeping, and carried them off the plane. When I picked them up they both started screaming in protest and as I walked by the flight attendant she just looked at me with pity. I got to the stroller and put Kaia in it, held on to Pierce and headed to our connecting flight.

I got to the next gate just as they were boarding. I was a little pissed off at this point because our seats were scattered. We had 2 seats that were together, a middle seat a few rows ahead of that, and another middle seat a few rows ahead of that. Not going to happen with a very needy 3 year old, a 5 year old with special needs, and an almost 7 year old. My travel agent had tried to change the seating arrangement when I first booked the flight, I had called the airline myself to try and change it, and I tried to change it at the airport in Jacksonville, and no one could change them for me, but assured me I could do it at the gate in Charlotte. Because we got there late we couldn't. The gate attendant told me they could work it out on board. I told the first flight attendant I saw and he said we needed wait until everyone seated. At this point it was about 10:15pm, and I had 2 screaming kids because I had woken them up and dragged them through the airport. Another flight attendant tried to find people to change seats with and she said no one would do it. She said it was really hard because we had middle seats and people with an aisle or window don't want to change, especially because they pay more for aisle or window seats. I looked at her like she was nuts because I know you don't pay more for aisle or window seats....that's just stupid. I had one gentleman offer to trade seats with me so that gave us 3 seats in a row, we just needed another one close by. Since the flight attendant was useless, a lady behind that row offered her seat for us (she had been very helpful to me right from the beginning). I got more help from other passengers on ALL legs of my trip than I ever got from any of the airline employees. Then the major problem came. I needed to sit with Kaia and Pierce to get them calmed down and settled so I told Nolan to go sit in the row behind us and he flat out refused! I beg, pleaded, bribed, threatened and he wasn't budging. He was tired, upset, and he had lost his stuffed puppy somewhere in the airport so he was already emotional. The flight attendant then got in his face and said very meanly to him "you need to move in that row behind you and you need to do it NOW!". Of course that freaked him out and got him more upset. I tried to pick him up to drag him there and he held on to the seats and I couldn't move him. I was sooooo mad and upset. The flight attendant very rudely says to me, and I quote, "You need to get this under control or I have no choice but to remove you from this plane". I just looked at her completely stunned. I couldn't beleive this was happening. I was mad at the flight attendant for doing nothing but making the situation worse, I was completely pissed off and upset at Nolan, I was embarassed at the whole thing happening in front of all these people. I just wanted to melt into the floor and disappear. Then the man in the seat across the aisle offered to go sit in the row behind and after thanking him profusely, I put Kaia in that seat and she curled up and fell asleep. I sat in my seat and cried for the first 1/2 hour of the flight.

When we landed I had 4 different people offer to help me carry one of the kids off the plane, and the lady that originally moved for us had stood up while people were de-planeing and told people to move aside and let us off first. Then several people helped me get my stroller unfolded and pushed up the ramp. Again, more help and courtesy from total strangers than I got from the airline employees who are PAID to do that. Not one flight attendant even acknowledged I existed. Probably a good thing for them because at that point I probably would have slapped them if they said something to me let alone even looked at me.

I am SOOOO glad all that is over. It put a damper on the whole fun of the trip. It wouldn't have been so awful if our flight wasn't so late at night, but needless to say, I will NOT be flying with kids any time soon. Even if Mark is with me. And US Air will be getting a very nasty letter from me. Every single one of their employees that I came in contact with from the check-in agents, to the gate attendants, to the flight attendants were either rude, or standoff-ish.

So how was YOUR night!? LOL.

(pictures of our trip to come later)