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You all know about our "field trip" to Niagara Falls, Canada.  I was fully prepared for the extra security measures.  I only carried medicine and baby food in my carry on.  In Austin, we did not have any trouble at all.  They let us through without a hitch.  I was taken aback when I realized we all had to remove our shoes.  Even 16 month old Pumpkin has to remove her shoes.  I think she was a bit shellshocked.  I remove her from bed at 4 in the morning and take her through this strange ritual of baggage and security check.  Little did she know how stranger it was going to get.

The flight to Chicago went off without a hitch.  Honey and Pumpkin fell asleep almost immediately.  This made the trip very bearable.  Brother and Sister took out activities that were in their rolling backpacks and occupied themselves throughout the flight.  It worked out rather well. 

In Chicago we landed in the F terminal and, of course, our next gate was in the C terminal.  Sigh.  So, I with my 4 and my sister, her husband and their 2 trudged to the shuttle bus stop.  Well, we had strollers.  The lady barked at us to fold them up.  No explanation–just fold them up.  To get to the buses we had to walk down some stairs.  If she had just told us there were no elevators we would have known what to do.  I was surprised because I thought people in Chicago, a city in the Midwest, would be friendly.  Well, not this lady.  She snapped at my 3 year old nephew to essentially hurry up down the stairs.  I wonder how disabled people get to their gates.  We did make it to the gate although a bit grumpy.

On our return, I had my carry on bags checked by the TSA.  I wasn’t upset, but it made me wonder why in Buffalo, but not in Austin.  Maybe it’s because Buffalo is so close to the Canadian border?  I’m not sure.  The things that were checked were the baby food and the medicine.  I carried Motrin, Tylenol and Albuterol.  The man kept thanking me for waiting patiently.  I told him that if I can wait 6 months for my husband to come home from Iraq, I can wait 5 minutes for him to search through my bags.  After that, no problems.  Buffalo’s airport was great because they had a little play area for the kids to burn off some energy before boarding. 

All in all, the actual travel part went well.  The kids behaved very well on the plane.  I do wish that people would not give such dirty looks to us when the babies were crying.  There’s only so much a mother can do to calm a baby (yes, my 16 month old is still my baby) on an airplane.  I didn’t keep the baby crying on purpose.  I did my best as did my sister to keep them calm and quiet. 

There’s much more to post about our field trip.  We’ve had family visiting from Korea so seat work has been a bit neglected, but we are learning quite a bit.