Traveling with small children: as fun as it sounds

I really wasn't looking forward to bringing my girls home. Actually, at the beginning of my trip I wondered if I'd want to go home at all, but after more than a month of traveling, I was actually ready to return home-- even if that home is in frozen Manchuria.

The long day of travelling began in San Francisco at about noon. My mom has a picture of us just before going through security. I strapped Naomi to my front, wore a backpack, pushed Penny in her stroller, and hung the diaper bag from the stroller handles. Technically we had 3 airplane tickets and could have brought a lot more luggage, but we'd already maxed out our capacity at two items.

Naomi had just slept in the car for a bit, and Penny would be winding down for her nap about 3 hours later..... theoretically. What actually happened was that no one slept for the first 9 hours of our 12 hour flight. Naomi needed to sleep. She REALLY needed to. But Penny wouldn't have it. We'd been gone from our home and from their Daddy for a long time, and the longer we were gone, the more they were both acting out for attention. Naomi cried whenever I wasn't holding her, and Penny would whine, cry, hit people, or generally misbehave whenever I focused all my attention on Naomi. This was only heightened on the flight. I tried to nurse and snuggle Naomi to sleep, but Penny would get jealous and start hitting her sister. Joy. Then no one was sleeping. That continued for hours.

The airplane didn't have the individual TVs for each seat, and Penny wanted to watch the TVs hanging down from the aisle ceiling. Since she's still tiny, the only way she could see the TV was to stand up on her seat. That's not a problem in itself, but no child ever lulled herself to sleep watching TV while standing up. It was the worst. At one point I even tried spanking Penny. I'd lay her down, and if she got up, I'd whack her little butt. That never works, and this time was no exception. I hate that I ever resort to that, because it only makes everyone upset (including me at myself). But going on nine hours of cranky babies, I was just hoping anything would work.

It's quite a production to squeeze all three of us into the tiny airplane bathrooms, but when one of us had to go, all of us had to go. We did it, and it was comical. Actually, Penny wouldn't eat much food but did drink all her juice whenever it was given her. She peed her pants twice. When I was down to the last pair of dry pants, she got to wear one of Naomi's diapers for the rest of the trip. Good thing, too!

The girls slept for the last three hours of the flight. Mercifully. There's something about a sleeping baby (or two) that just makes any frustration, anger, or exhaustion just melt away. I'm not sure how it works, but I'm certainly glad it does.

After a 4-hour layover in Beijing, where my voice was croaky, my mind was blurry, and people wanted me to talk to them-- in Chinese-- we flew home to Shenyang. All three of us slept on that short flight. Penny fell asleep before the plane had even pushed back from the airport. Naomi and I weren't far behind her.

We made it home, and for that I'm grateful. I wasn't expecting it to be a fun journey, and it lived up to my expectations.

We have the opportunity to travel home again before the end of the year. We'll see if my memory fades by then.