We were scheduled to leave Seattle on the evening December 19th, flying on British Airways direct to London. It wasn't a mistake that we had planned to take a night flight with the least amount of lay over time. We were ready. We had packed the bags carefully, we had enough diapers for every baby on the plane, we had enough snacks for every person on the plane. We had resigned ourselves to 9 exhausting hours all we had to do was make it to the airport on time. So what could go wrong? Well everything actually. Heavy snow at Heathrow brought BA to a stand still for 5 days, which meant our only hope of getting out of Seattle and making it to UK by Christmas was to fly Delta to Amsterdam on the 22nd. It wasn't what I'd hoped for or paid for for that matter, but beggars can't be choosers as they say, so that is what we did.
After 3 additional days milling around Seattle, we finally headed to the airport. We had checked in the day before on line. Obviously due to the late booking our seats were all over, but I assumed that they would change this at the airport (foolish me). When we got there Scott went to the gate to try and sort out the seats. Scott and I were seated together, but Max and Zoe were scattered in single seats in another part of the plane. Two 2 year olds traveling by themselves for 10 hours now there is a recipe for success:) Eventually we got 2 sets of 2 seats, but when we got on we saw they were in separate cabins. Also one set of 2 was 2 middle seats. I figured maybe the people in our row would trade so we could sit together but no, everyone wanted to stay put with a screaming toddler in the middle (foolish people). The fact that no one was kind enough to change seats put me in a foul mood, so my plan was to make their flight as horrible as mine was going to be.
I had dosed the kiddos up on Benedryl an hour before take off and as it was their nap time I was hoping the would drift off as we took off. Worked like a charm with Max, which was great because I was with him. Zoe not so much, in fact she stayed awake for the entire 10 hours getting more and more hysterical. This made Scott more and more hysterical so I was left with the screamiest toddler in the world for 4 hours. Nothing worked, not food, not DVD's, not stickers, not walking her around, really it was hopeless. Everyone was staring at me and one women even tutted at me, which was a grave error on her part. I was sat in row 42 and you could hear me SCREAM "stop staring at her, she is tired" in the first class cabin. After that the flight attendant came to ask if she could help and I told her to bring "A LOT of wine." (For me not Z-Bop).
After what was truly the longest 10 hours of my life we finally landed in Amsterdam and the minute the plane touched down Zoe fell asleep. So she slept through the hour long flight to Manchester right? Wrong she SCREAMED the entire time. By the time we finally landed in Manchester Scott and I were ready to file for divorce and we were ready to give the pink baby up for adoption. But then I got through the gates and saw my dad for the first time in nearly 2 years, and it (almost!) made up for the journey of horror.
