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Travel With Children…Toddler Edition

Last year I had to fly for over 25 hours with my toddler child. I dreaded the journey for MONTHS. Just ME and the child. I was going home for my brother’s wedding and my husband couldn’t join us until two weeks later.

This is my journal entry after I traveled alone with my 2-years-and-five-month-old son from Laos to the East coast of the USA.

Well, I made it home in one piece. Jonas did as well as he could have on all of the flights. At the end of the longest flight (17 hours) we were literally landing with about 2 minutes to go and he threw up and then started crying hysterically. I’m so glad that happened at the end rather than the beginning, if only for the stink factor. I had tons of clothes for him to change into, and everyone around me handed us their airplane blankets to sop it up with. And this guy offered to carry our carry on baggage through the airport. I accepted because he had said earlier he had a 25 month old that looked just like Jojo, and he organized mission trips to India. Very trustworthy credentials.
Also after/during the barf episode, Jonas suddenly had to pee, so I had him pee in an airsick bag (we couldn’t get up, we were landing). I hope no one noticed.
When we arrived in LA we went through customs and everything without a hitch, then were able to get some quesadillas before all the food places closed at 10 pm. Our flight to Chicago was on time and Jonas fell asleep before we even took off, all buckled up in his seat. I watched the movie Night at the Museum with no headphones, hoping I would get some sleep instead. Jonas woke up with about an hour left on the flight but wasn’t any trouble. We ate a lot of goldfish crackers. In Chicago, we landed at about 5am and went to St*rbucks (there are like 20 of them in the airport…I walked past a crowded one and found one with no other customers - it was awesome!). Jonas had a muffin and milk and a banana, and I had a steamed milk with hazelnut syrup (I wanted almond but they didn’t have it).
Our flight was delayed about an hour leaving Chicago, and somehow our gates were switched like 4 times so we were running all over the airport. Then we finally got on the plane and sat on the runway for a while. It was raining and freezing so the airport was in a tizzy trying to make contingency plans I think. Finally we got to go on our remaining 1 hr 30 minute flight to home. Jonas slept most of it as well (I had a lot of people praying for the trip).
It was wonderful to see my parents waiting for us at the airport. I could finally let my guard down after 30+ hours of constant vigil. I could go pee! We went home and had veggie burgers. It was about noon but I don’t let myself go to sleep until night time. It helps with jet lag. I went to sleep at 5pm (sort of night time…) and woke up at about 1am with Jonas needing me. We were up for a few hours because he needed a snack and a potty visit (Laos is 12 hours different time zone from Central Standard Time, so it was 1pm in Laos. We are just now getting adjusted, 4 days later). Then we went back to sleep and I woke up around 7am.

I made it! And I’ll probably do it again and again in the future, maybe with several children.

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