Traveling While Parenting (Or What the French Call Les Incompetents)
Inside: What would a working mom blog be without some great working mom fails? Join us for one of our favorite traveling while parenting fails and some 90s nostalgia.
Home Alone is one of the greatest cinematic achievements of our time. (Not up for debate.)
So when Glen and I overslept the morning I was supposed to take him and the kids to the airport for a quick trip to visit his family in Colorado, it was kind of fun at first.
Then it really wasn’t.
And then it was again.
Join us for the rollercoaster.
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We Slept In!
Sleeping in as a parent is a very weird sensation. You wake up from your slumber and it’s all like “Where am I? Who am I? What year is it? OMG is everyone alive!?!?”
Sleeping in as a parent when you are supposed to be going to an airport adds a whole new level of challenge to the situation.
Basically this:
Dun dunnana dun dun dun da. Dun dunnana dun dun dun da!
Did We Close the Garage Door?
Pulling it together in record time, Glen and I got our two very small children packed up and in the car.
Five minutes after we were on the highway I realized I left baby Norah’s sleep sack at home. Akin to Uncle Frank’s reading glasses, this wasn’t a huge deal. Drive on.
Twenty minutes into driving, Glen realized he didn’t grab Jack’s toddler seatbelt for the plane. This fell more into the “Peter McCallister forgetting to close the garage door” category, but still manageable. Drive on.
Fifty minutes into driving, I casually mentioned the diaper bag that, in addition to diapers, held all of the kids’ snacks, Norah’s bottles, Norah’s birth certificate that would allow her to board the plane, and Buzz’s life savings.
“I didn’t put it in the car, you didn’t put it in the car?”
KEVIN!
Bring Me Back Something French!
But maybe one of our tiny humans packed the diaper bag?
With this completely irrational thought in mind, I crawled into the trunk from the front seat as we drove down the highway. Norah found this hilarious and Jack found it a little concerning. This made it quite clear who I want to be in charge of teaching about road safety. Dibs on the one worried about laws.
(Although let’s be honest, Glen’s teaching them both to drive. But I digress.)
We must have mistaken a neighbor’s diaper bag for ours because our diaper bag was securely not in our trunk.
(Fine, that Home Alone reference was a stretch. See below for a video clip of a related and underrated line for your troubles.)
Frickin Frackin Frickin…
With no diaper bag in tow, we had to drive back home. Away from the airport, away from their flight, and away from my girls’ weekend with my best friend.
Glen was calm about it, I lost all of my chill. Which is pretty much how our marriage goes.
The 10 am flight was clearly out of the question so I spent the next fifteen minutes angry muttering like Harry and Marv while re-booking them on the next direct Southwest flight/ looking out for a UHaul driven by the Kenosha Kickers headed west.
Season of Perpetual Hope
Glen, Jack, and Norah got re-booked for like $20 because Southwest understands that mid-April is the season of perpetual hope.
And since I was supposed to be on my way to Pennsylvania, my mom came to the rescue to help them out at the airport later. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it many many more times, moms fix things. Also, my mother in particular is a Saint.
AND, I got over being furious and we laughed about the whole situation by the time we pulled the car back into the garage.
Look What You Did, You Little Jerk
The moral of this story: Don’t be a jerk when someone makes a mistake.
In parenthood, in your career, in your career + parenthood, you’ll make plenty of mistakes of your own. And honestly, the diaper bag mistake might have been my mistake, that’s still unclear.
The other moral of the story, if you are a little neurotic when under pressure, marry someone calm. Balance is nice.
And the third moral of the story, that isn’t actually a moral but is a nice win, if you are going to have a miserable travel fail at least turn it into a funny story with 10+ Home Alone references. That will make everything better.
Guaranteed.
