Florida part 1.

This is going to be wordy with not many pictures. If you're interested to see how our first flying with twins experience went, read on. All of the pictures I took were just on my iPod so they aren't very good, but oh well, such is life. :)

Our flight left Salt Lake at 7:30 am, which meant that I got up at 4:15. I had said a couple days prior on facebook that I thought we should hire a camera crew to film us at the airport because it would be that entertaining and I probably should have. Just the logistics of getting two suitcases, 3 carryons, two strollers, two car seats, and two babies onto the shuttle from the parking lot would have made for good TV. Luckily, there were lots of people around who could tell we were pathetically trying to do it all ourselves and they offered us help. Once we got into the airport, Josh carried the car seats and pulled the suitcases while I got the strollers. We decided to go with two small, umbrella strollers to have more room in our trunk. That was a good idea, but our only mistake was not getting two identical ones. Pushing two single strollers at once turned out to be quite the task and I think if they would have been the same height and had the same wheels it would have been easier. I WISH I would have taken a picture of my solution, but we were frantically trying to get through security, so I didn't think of it. Basically, I took the stroller with the wider handles and shoved my hips between it. I literally used my pelvic bone/hips to push that one while I leaned forward and pushed the front one with my arms. This was all while I was holding a giant purse and I had also had a backpack on. It was ridiculous and we had about oh...20 people comment and giggle about it. People kept calling me "super mom" and things like that, but I always replied with something, "you do what you gotta do!" and that's the truth. It's not like I wanted to push the stroller with my hips. What other option did I have?  Every once and a while, the wheels of the front stroller (which was by far the crappier of the two) would get jammed and I had to lift it up and down a little to straighten them out. Guys, it was one of those "holy smokes having one kid would be so much easier than having two moments." 

Since we checked in our car seats and strollers at the gate, we had this faux double stroller getup until we got to the gate. Actually, I think about half way there, I yelled to Josh that I was dying so we decided to each take a stroller and each take a car seat. The easiest way I could do this was wear the car seat like a bracelet. That's right. Like a bracelet. Are you laughing yet? Because you really, really should be. It was quite the show. 

The first flight was almost perfect. I had gone to the dollar store a few days earlier and stocked up on about 400 stickers, 5 new coloring books, a couple new board books, play watches, an etch-a-sketch, a couple new stuffed animals (puppy for Soph, monkey for Lillian) Elmo flash cards, and I made two photo albums with pictures of the girls, family and friends. Josh and I weren't allowed to sit together because you're only allowed one lap infant per row, so they stuck us a few rows a part, in front of each other. I was planning for this though, so Josh and I each had a gallon size ziplock filled with new toys and treats. About half way through the flight, Josh comes up to me with a panicked looked on his face. "Lillian's diaper is leaking and it's all over her and all over me!" He was right. They were both soaked. And you know what? In all of my hours of stressing over screaming babies on the plane I didn't once think to pack an extra change of clothes! So we took the girls back (since I figured Sophie would need a fresh diaper too) and changed them in the tiny, tiny bathroom. It was a bit traumatic, but we were able to get it done. Lillian, however, was just in a diaper for the rest of the flight. Luckily, there was another twin mom and several other moms in general on our plane that reassured me that I wasn't a horrible mom and they were quick to tell me stories about when they had forgotten extra clothes for their kids. I still felt like such an idiot! Josh and I traded babies, so Lillian sat on my lap with her blanket wrapped around her until Houston. Other than that little bump in the road, the girls were perfect. 

 

Once we got to Houston, I went to the bathroom to see if I could wash out her clothes and use an hand dryer to dry them. Guess what? The Houston airport only has paper towels. So, I rinsed her clothes off, rung them out and decided to find a window we could dry them by. Ghetto, right? 

Our second flight was from Houston to Tampa. Again, they wouldn't let us sit together, but they thought they'd do us a favor of sitting us in two aisle seats across from each other. Good idea in theory, but baaaaaad idea in practice. Turns out that both of the girls wanted me and wanted nothing to do with Josh. That meant that for 95% of the flight, one of them was screaming. And I'm talking screaming. It was awful and I may have started crying a little bit... The lady in front of us kept flashing these evil glares and ended up ordering several screwdrivers. Actually, her exact words were "I NEED vodka!" I was humiliated. Thankfully, that flight was pretty short (a little under two hours) and it's two hours of my life I hope to never repeat.

When we finally landed in Tampa I figured out a handy car seat trick. We let the stroller handles wear them like bracelets. It worked really well and Josh was able to pull our luggage and push one of the strollers. Yes, I was kicking myself for not figuring that out in Salt Lake. I tell you, if you're ever traveling with a kid (or two) do this over pushing the stroller with your hips. It's so much easier and you look SOOOO much less idiotic.

From Tampa, we had an hour or so drive to my grandma's. It was SO good to get there. It was especially fun for me because not only was it my grandma we were visiting, but I had never been to her house in Florida. She moved there from Utah when I was 17, so it was like taking a trip back in time when I saw all of her trinkets that I remembered from my childhood. So these pictures are for mostly for my sister because I know she'll appreciate them...

 

We didn't do much the rest of the day. Just visited, ate and tried to get the girls to go to sleep. It was tough, but they finally crashed and we were all able to fall asleep. 

Stay tuned for day 2...