Twin little monkeys out about the town

I'm not going to lie.  Although our initial flight w/ Mommy and Dada went pretty well, I was still nervous about my solo flight with the boys.  After two weeks in the semi-wilderness, they were a little stir-crazy and we'd watched every single movie and Elmo show until our DVDs wore out (seriously).  I was pretty sure they would spend the 5+ travel hours climbing me, screaming and eating one another.  I was (happily) SOOOOO wrong!  My mom joined us at the airport and was able to get a gate pass to help us with security.  Frankly, I could maybe have made it through without her, but it's nice to have an extra adult til you board the plane.  I suspect that next time I fly solo, the airline will be less willing to give the gate pass, but I'll keep trying until both boys are able to say "Yes, Mr TSA officer, I am more than happy to submit to your unnecessary pat-down.  But I'm not totally potty trained, so smoosh at your own risk."  On our short flight, t

After a miserable 2010 travel summer, we were reluctant to try again (see:  http://twinlittlemonkeys.blogspot.com/2011/06/terrible-twos-times-two-flight-or-what.html ) but try we did, with some adjustments as well as a year of maturing the monkeys. I would say it was an unequivocal success.  Dada would likely disagree, but his success threshhold is unrealistic.  What worked: Divide and conquer - we each picked a kid and on the plane, it was as if we were on separate trips.  We each had our own carryons filled with what we needed for that kid.  We were on Southwest, and did Early Bird checkin for the parents, so we boarded A and sat Window/Middle in consecutive rows. Practice - prior to the trip, we did some practice time watching our favorite movies on the ipad and laptop with headphones on.  Baby B doesn't love things on his head, so the practice was helpful so that the headphones weren't new and scary.  We also talked a lot about seatbelts on airplanes and seeing Nonni

So last summer's flight to and from Wisconsin was pretty much a disaster (well, at least in Dada's words), and since we (he) vowed never to fly again, my words needed to take a while off before writing about being an expert at traveling with twins.  Here's what went wrong and how I think (hope) it should be fixed: 3-1 seating.  We always have sat 3 in one row and Dada across the aisle.  This was fine when we had 1-2 kids in car seats and their legs were too short to do any damage.  No longer awesome - neither kid wanted to be with Mommy, both wanted to sit on Dada's lap.  Both spent a ton of time, especially during takeoff and landing, trying to climb across Mommy and the aisle to get to Dada who was sitting next two two business men on their way to a conference (their fault, not ours...it was open seating after all)  Wishful solution:   put the kids in the back of the plane and Mommy & Dada up front.  Probable solution:   each parent with one kid.  Car seat.  W