How NOT To Travel Over The Holidays

We are home and safe, and in the end, we eventually had fun. That's what I need to focus on. But I'm not quite there yet. Plus, I wouldn't want anyone else to have the joy I experienced; I'd rather people learn from my (husband's) mistakes and avoid some of our disaster.

Top Things I Learned Over Break:

1) Do not let your husband make the travel arrangements. Or at least not my husband. While I have been known to be ummm frugal, there are limits to it. And why did we do this? It wouldn't have anything to do with my husband forgetting to make flight reservations, nope not that! We ended up flying out of Milwaukee instead of Chicago because it was cheaper. While Milwaukee isn't that much more of a drive, it leads to the next point.

2) Do not travel on connecting flights. The more connecting flights you have, the more potential for problems, especially in winter. And over the holidays. Ditto ten times over for connections where the second airline isn't the same as the first - which ours wasn't... to start.

3) Do not take the last flight of the evening. Aside from the obvious issues of tired and cranky children (and possibly parents), if there are any issues with your flight - like ohhhh say United being unable to find a gate for a flight for almost 50 minutes - and your connection takes off while you are still waiting for a gate, there are no options to get to your destination that day.

4) When rebooking your flight with the customer service agents, check the weather for destinations you weren't originally intending to go but are now being told you will go. Our direct flight from Chicago to Orlando turned into a connection in DC and a switch over from United to Delta. Had I not been so exhausted, I would have checked the weather in DC and discovered that Delta had already canceled all their flights for the current day because of weather that was supposed to get worse the day we were flying and refused to go there.

5) Don't simply show up at the airport the next day to see if there are any standby flights available, call the airline to check that night once you get to your airline paid for hotel room. We showed up at 5:15am for our 7:05 flight to DC. We went through security and asked Customer Service to check flights for us again. It turns out that there was a United Flight at 6am to Cleveland (where there was NOT weather) that would have gotten us to Orlando by 11:30am that had plenty of open seats. The customer service agent the night before had somehow overlooked that flight. Except it was now 5:45 and the doors were closing. There was no physical way for us to get to the gate in time to make the flight. To say I was unhappy was putting it mildly.

6) If upon arriving at your temporary destination, your new carrier has canceled all flights, don't wait in the super long line there. Instead, go talk to the folks at your original carrier. Delta's flight to Orlando was canceled by the time we arrived in DC. And that wasn't their only canceled flight. The line was hours long. I scooted over to United where there were two people ahead of me and had a nice chat with the agent there. The bad news? Although it was Sunday at 10am, there was no flight available on any carrier to get us to Orlando until Tuesday. Tuesday. It didn't matter if we were willing to go to San Francisco to fly to Orlando, there was nothing available. Zip. The galling part? Although we had asked for a direct flight (as we'd originally had) from Chicago to Orlando when being rebooked initially and United had sent us to DC instead - where flights had already been canceled and there was more weather scheduled - because this was now a weather related delay, we were on our own for finding and paying for a hotel for the next two nights. Ahhhh, no. That's not ok.

7) If your flight is being rebooked due to a missed connections, do your best to get your checked luggage back. We had our carry on luggage only, as our checked baggage was sent from Chicago to Orlando on the direct flight at 6:48 Sunday morning - a flight where there was room for our bags but sadly not us. And in DC, there was no hope to get our bags back. Although we'd be stuck in DC for an additional two days, United could not - or rather would not - get our bags to DC so that we could have a change of clothes or any of our belongings. And again... since it's a weather related delay now, there was no compensation for lost bags, meals, hotel, or anything. This was a big problem because of the next issue.

8) Make sure you always pack what you need in your carry on. I've followed this rule for years. I always have a change of clothes and other necessities in my carry on. Increasing restrictions over the years have made this more of a challenge, but I always focus on it. My husband learned this lesson the hard way. He didn't have necessities packed. And for some unknown reason, he took Little Miss's pull ups out of her carry on and put them into checked bags. Three days with no pull ups for her. Night one she somehow managed to stay dry. Night two, not so much. And United simply told us to head to the nearest store. In a strange city. Where we had no car. On our way to a hotel we were paying for on our own. Or not.

9) When desperate enough, rent a car to drive where you're going - but call to make a reservation first. I'd done that before when working in consulting in Detroit. Detroit more than once canceled the flights back to Chicago that we were on. Rather than be stuck in Detroit for another night, twice I rented a car and drove back to Chicago - once running into some co-workers in the rental car office who were trying to do the same thing only to discover that there were no cars available. I had called the rental car office as soon as I realized the situation and - as it turns out - had gotten the very last car once. I called again this time and was initially told all cars were gone before they finally found one for me. While it's more expensive to rent in one location and return in another, it isn't always - and this was one of those situations where it was worth it. We'll ignore the very nearly wiping out the car on a patch of ice in North Carolina while trying to slow down for a wreck ahead (thank you years of driving in Minnesota!) and the sixteen hours it took us to drive in favor of arriving in Orlando almost a full day before United was going to be able to get us there.

10) If you change your itinerary due to unforeseen circumstances, make sure you inform the airline. This is where being a consultant came in handy again. Because we chose not to fly the last leg of our flight down, I contacted United to let them know that we were not canceling the remainder of our itinerary and absolutely were planning to still fly home on Saturday. Had I not done so before the scheduled flight on Tuesday morning, our entire reservation would have been canceled, and we would have had to buy last minute tickets to fly home - not how I would want to end my vacation. Fortunately, this was not an issue.

And lastly...

11) Keep everyone informed of your status. We had a car rental reservation in Orlando that expected us to show up Saturday evening. Ditto with a hotel reservation. As I learned that we'd be delayed, I called both the car company and hotel to let them know that we were still planning to use the reservation but had been unavoidably delayed and to not release our reservation. While the rental car wouldn't be so big a deal - finding a car wouldn't be the biggest deal, although I'd lose out on the coupons I'd found and used - arriving at our hotel only to find that there was no room at the inn for us would have been the disaster that put me over the edge.

As I was, I felt rather like we were in National Lampoon's Vacation - less the grandmother tied to the roof or, thankfully, Wally World being closed once we arrived, but this is not a trip I'd wish on anyone. We lost days off our not quite seven day vacation and added some significant and unexpected expenses to it, not to mention we were all absolutely exhausted after multiple nights of very little sleep. All because United couldn't clear a gate at O'Hare for us and then did a poor job rebooking us; yeah, they'll be hearing from me.

On the plus side, we had a blast while we were there, albeit a much shorter blast with fewer days at Disney because we needed to rest. We didn't let our "adventure" getting to our vacation ruin it for us - although poor Mister Man (that whole Asperger's thing rearing its ugly head) very nearly did. I'll share my creative and surprisingly effective solution to that in another post.

But this? This was the last time we're traveling over the holidays. And here's hoping you can use some of what I learned to prevent misery when you travel.

Where Does The Time Go?

Today is effectively the last day of my time off work. For those of you who didn't know, I've spent the last two and a half weeks off work. I've been -- shall we say -- a bit burned out at work lately. After bringing this up to my boss's boss, he suggested I take off three weeks in November. Ya know, since I have that much vacation time that I haven't taken. And I still have the time remaining to take off the last two weeks in December.

For me, this was a trial run to see how I do without a job. I'm seriously considering going the SAHM route, for a nubmer of reasons (Little Miss leaving me out of family pictures, the working through dinners while working at home, the challenge of finding the time to do everything I'm committed to doing, the absolute dread I feel every time I have to have anything to do with my boss).

I tried staying at home previously when the wee ones were truly wee. When Mister Man was two and a half and Little Miss eight months, I stayed home for six months. Going hundreds of miles an hour at work to zero with two mobile (she was walking shortly thereafter) children while living in a new area didn't work out for me so well. Now, it's a different story.

I can happily say that I was not in the least bored while off work. Interestingly, I've been more busy than normal. I'm way behind on my DVR. I'm so far behind on blog reading (sorry!) that I'll never catch up. I did fun homemade dinners more often, but not nearly as often as I thought I would. While I caught up on a lot of stuff at home, I'm still trying to figure out how I didn't get more done.

Things I did get done:
Made of list of everything I had to do while I was off
Wrote Mister Man's thank you notes for his birthday (that happened October 17)
Made it to the gym regularly
Had breakfast and lunch with friends I hadn't caught up with enough
Got a mani/pedi
Sorted my closet
Put together the annual gift card fundraiser for Little Miss's preschool
Put out the preschool newsletter
Got caught up on laundry
Played games with the wee ones
Took Little Miss to her gymnastics class
Got the old blinds over to my friend's house who will hang them someday (maybe this weekend, she says!)
Took the wee ones to open gym
Went to dinner with the wee ones at a friend's house
Read
Caught up completely on the Labels for Education sorting, cutting and gluing

Things I didn't get done:
Make that dentist appointment
Get to the dentist
File the growing pile of papers in the office
Get my flu shot
Volunteer in Mister Man's classroom
Get caught up on blogs
Put up the reviews awaiting my review blog (next week!)
Make an inventory of the freezer and do meal planning based on this
Take the wee ones' outgrown clothes to the shelter
Straighten up the office
Call for a charity to come take away the old entertainment center
Get Mister Man's swimming lessons moved to a new time

I'm still trying to figure out how I'm busier with more free time than I was when I was working 30 plus hours a week. However, the realization that I have three weeks before I'm off again was really depressing, as me who can't count thought it was only two.

I loved having time with the wee ones. Hearing about their days in school and being able to take my time hearing all the stories instead of having two minutes between conference calls was great. Being able to see Little Miss run around the gym was heartwarming. Having the time to do vision therapy exercises with Mister Man instead of nagging my husband and mother to try to do them was gratifying. I liked being home.

While I felt guilty the first week about a couple things that I wanted to do for work, I successfully resisted the urge to ever check my email or to even charge my Blackberry. I separated, and I didn't miss it.

And there are so many things that I want to do yet if I had more time. With more time, I could really improve the wee ones' largest fundraiser of the year coming in May. I've wanted to volunteer at a hippotherapy center near me for years, but I can't justify it while working. I'm running further now, but once I go back to work, I have only one or possibly two (including the weekend) days that I can get to the gym, which means my progress will stagnate or worse. And the playdates that the wee ones love to have and so rarely get when I'm working? Just the joy that Mister Man showed on his face when I took him and a friend to go see a play on Monday was priceless.

But I'm wondering if the office will still remain with its growing pile of papers. I think my magazine pile might continue to expand. Somehow, the days just disappear. What's the saying though? Time flies when you're having fun. And me? I've been having fun.

Someone's Got It In For Me

This week is my vacation. And by my vacation, I mean MINE. Not the wee ones'. Not my husband's. I'm not going anywhere, but this is my week to recharge.

It all started when my parents -- who provide a ton of help to us during the week with childcare -- announced they were going to Amelia Island with an aunt and uncle for a week in April. My mom immediately started panicking. What would I do about the wee ones? Who would take them to daycare? Who would pick them up from preschool? Oh, it was a disaster and she never should have agreed to go....

I simply announced that I would take the week off work. That mollified her.

Of course, my plan was to take the week off work and keep the wee ones in school and daycare. Thus, it's my week of vacation.

It is not meant to be.

Last Wednesday, my aunt's brother passed away. The vacation was off. My mom cheerfully announced that I no longer needed to take the week off since they'd be in town now. Uhhhh, yeah.... And the guilt trip started. I'm proud of myself, though; I didn't cave.

My dad announced that they're taking the wee ones to the city on Wednesday and going to the Field Museum, and how fun. I was going, right? Uhhh, sorry, Dad, but you are soooo wrong on that one. His opinion is that since they're in town, the wee ones can just skip school all week. Yeah, not so much.

We compromised. I'm not going to the Field Museum, but they are. My Wednesday vacation day is back on.

And yesterday? My husband couldn't get out of bed. He had a fever. The veteran teacher who never gets sick was miserable. I informed him that he absolutely was not allowed to remain sick. He had to find some way to get his immune system into gear and off to school once Monday morning rolled around. And he did.

And the green noses from the wee ones? I didn't see anything, did you?

Day One of my vacation? A success.

It involved a manicure, a pedicure, and lunch with some really fun friends consisting of Lou's (good Chicago pizza for the uninitiated) and an initiation into the world of eggless cookie dough. Did I mention that I'm also 152 pages into the first Twilight book?

I feel better already.

Cross Your Fingers For Me

Tomorrow, we head to Florida. And no, that's not why I need you to cross your fingers. We actually have three adults flying down with two wee ones, so it won't be too bad. Traveling with my parents makes things so much easier.

No, I'm worried about what Little Miss might do.

I was worried about this with Mister Man on a previous flight, but fortunately my worries were for naught. Little Miss, on the other hand, likes to try to do things that are slightly naughty but not quite enough to really get her in trouble.

She's learned body parts.

And who has which ones.

We regularly have conversations around how Mommy has a vag1na and Daddy has a pen1s. Yes, we use the proper words because I don't want her to not be able to use them when she's older, and I want both of them to be comfortable with their bodies.

Unfortunately, those conversations don't stay just about Mommy and Daddy. When my parents are over for dinner, Little Miss will sometimes ask my dad if he also has a pen1s because he's a boy. Picture a conservative 64 year old who didn't exactly spend a ton of time parenting when his own daughters were young. Now picture him turning beet red and spluttering at the question.

Personally, I think it's sort of funny.

It isn't quite as funny when we're out in public and she asks me (thankfully, knock on wood, not anyone else yet) if a certain person has a pen1s or a vag1na. And I tell her. And then I explain that this isn't a polite conversation to have in a public place. The first part sticks with her, but the second part ... not so much.

But I have this nightmare where Little Miss walks down the aisle of the aircraft as I'm loaded down with bags and unable to grab her or discreetly shush her.

She walks down the aisle and looks to her left. Vag1na, she announces as she points to the woman in the seat. To her right, she spots a dad with his son. Pen1s and pen1s, she proudly crows. On and on, all the way to the back of the airport she continues her dissection of gender and anatomy. She is blithely unaware of the chaos she's leaving in her wake.

Unaware, that is, until she gets to the man, or is it a woman, with short hair and nondescript featres. Uh-oh. She stops and stares at this poor person. Finally, her eyes light up. You, she announces in her oh-so-sweet way that only she can, are a boy. You have a pen1s. And she skips merrily forward.

The man with the subtle eyeliner and lipgloss that I can now see as he, I mean she, narrows her eyes, is none to pleased. She glares as me as I blush, stammering apologies, before I drop my items and scoop up Little Miss with my hand wrapped around her mouth, hushing her.

The damage is done, however, and I can hear the giggles from around me, and the thumping of feet coming behind me. Fortunately, I usually wake up at this point, drenched in a cold sweat, dreading setting foot on this airplane.

If you don't hear from me again, it's because I was pummeled to bits by the nice lady my daughter thought was a man.

PS I do have scheduled posts and expect to have wireless access in the hotel, so I should still be around. If not, I'll be back on the 30th! Wish me luck at Disney!