How to take your family on a 30 hour trip

We made it through the 3-leg trip and are finally here in tbilisi!

The run down of the trip:

We had a fabulous time at my brother's house in Chicago, staying there long enough to pack in lots of cousin play time as well as a trip to the local children's museum-- not to mention my brother's marionberry pie, my friend mari's cupcakes, and Chicago hot dogs. Awesome.

Our next adventure was the flight to Warsaw. Paul's parents flew into O'hare and we met up at the international terminal there. Our flight left at 10:55 p.m., which worked out great. Luke sat with Grandpa, and they both slept the whole way. Chick sat with me, and we managed the other boys pretty easily. Liam slept on the floor, and jude slept in a bassinet attached to the bulkhead in front of us.

As a side note, Lot airlines, while adequate, lacked a bit in the service area. I didn't get headphones. Our tv didn't work. And I ordered vegetarian/vegan meals due to the dairy allergy of mr. Jude, and they came 20 minutes after everyone else's, and with country crock margarine. Really? You couldn't have put some strawberry jam in there? The regular meals came with a kit kat for dessert but mine had not even so much as a starlight mint. But those minor things aside, we did indeed fly through the air at 35,000 feet at insane speeds and cross the atlantic ocean in relative comfort, and with sleeping kids to boot.

Next was our layover in Warsaw--an 8 hour beast. We contemplated going to a hotel room, but the boys had slept, so there was no way they were going to give us any rest there. We found a lovely little play area in the airport and set up camp there. They had a kid picnic table and a play house in an enclosed area. They opened up their backpacks and played there uninterrupted for the entire time. The ENTIRE time. That is some serious playing stamina. The worst part about Warsaw was the food. No real food. Only a couple of cafes selling packaged sandwiches (with butter and cheese, so i couldn't eat them, and the boys wouldn't touch them). My brother sent a couple of hammer bars with me, and they totally saved me. I also found some bagel chips at a magazine stand, and that was it for the day.

The last leg of the journey was the flight from warsaw to Tbilisi, leaving at 10:30 p.m. By now we were pretty hammered. There was no jetway, so instead of "gate checking" the stroller and carseat, we had to haul everything down a flight of stairs, onto a shuttle, and onto a small plane. I literally could not have done this without the perrins' help, and even then we needed some help from kind Polish strangers. Chick was carrying Liam (asleep) and the baby (not asleep), Yves handled all the tickets, passports, and Luke, and i had 4 carryons plus the stroller and carseat. Did i mention it was freezing and super windy? Yeah. It was fun.

Once on the plane, we had room to spread out, with plenty of empty seats on the plane. Liam went to sleep and so did Luke. Too bad Jude was a pill and wouldn't sleep or settle down. He did get a fan club of about 8 Polish men tho. He was wearing a fuzzy reindeer snowsuit and they kept calling him a little yeti. And they all gave me the chocolates from their meal. So that was nice. But i spent the whole time walking the aisle with him.

Finally we landed! At 5 am! And Paul met us and we were so happy to see him and be done traveling! we shoved all our bags into two taxis and drove to our new home and hauled all that luggage up the hill (more on that later) and unpacked enough to be able to go to bed and crashed.

All in all, it went well. No delays. No mishaps. No lost luggage. Or even damaged luggage. No inconsolable screaming children. So, better than i hoped for, but still one heck of a trip.

Stay tuned for next time: jet lag with kids, and other things you shouldn't try at home.




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Location:Tbilisi