a little look back at the magic kingdom...

in the living desert...

california, here i am...

We're pretty much trying to get as much out of the summer as possible so we took the opportunity to make my 2oth High School Reunion into a chance to visit family in California. And as usual, I've packed as much as humanely possible into this trip. Luckily, Boaz is a good sport and in return for him not totally freaking out when we go to visit twelve of my closest old friends and family in one afternoon, he's been scoping out golf courses everywhere we go.

At this point in the trip, we're drying out in the desert. The kids have rediscovered their cousins, Dallas and Jacob, and Dallas and Tali have taken to calling each other "Sista." And they're all having a great time splashing around the pool at their Saba and Grandma's. We're here till Wednesday and then heading to LA to see more friends and family and then to gasp... Disneyland. I'm really not so sure there are enough golf courses in this state to get Boaz through that.

viva las vegas... the pic is a little fuzzy, but then so was the trip

wordless wednesday

party like it's 1999...

Last week B and I flew to San Francisco by ourselves for the weekend for the AIA conference, and we did not bring the kids.

We had adult time. Without kids. (I'm thinking that you're getting the picture, but wanted to make it very clear that we were kidless).

And being kidless in a city where we met, hanging out in the same neighborhoods we did, and even with the same friends we used to hang with (most kidless for the weekend, too!), we felt like we'd been transported back ten years. Oh, and we sort of acted like it, too.

We walked for hours and hours around town, running into the thousands of architects that had flooded the city (our friend Fiona even spotted one caressing a structural column at the Gap), browsed in bookstores, ate interesting foods that didn't involve noodles or hamburgers and we stayed out very, very late. I think we forgot that we weren't actually 26, though our exhaustion the next day reminded us fairly insistently. Boaz was pretty sure he had jetlag.

And the coolest thing thing was that B and I remembered how much fun we used to have with each other pre-kids. And we found out that we were still fun together, even though we hang out like that only once every three years or so. We may have to block out some more room on our calendars...

on being an actual person... escape from seattle!

It's amazing what three days on your own will do for a person...

On Sunday at 4:30 am, I left my dark house, 40 degree weather, and climbed into a taxi for Palm Springs to meet up with some girlfriends and enjoy some sun and relaxation. Under normal circumstances, there are very few activities that would warrant a 4am wake-up call. However, with two nights and three days of pure freedom, I wanted to make the most of my vacation and booked the first flight out. I'm not sure I've ever been so alert that early in my life.

At airport security, where I was sent back and forth through the screening multiple times until my very thorough security officer finally dug through my suitcase and while commenting on how many cosmetics I'd brought on my carry-on luggage, he looks at me and says sarcastically, "Have you even been on an airplane since 9/11?"

But even though he asks another security guard to keep an eye on me while he tests my 3+oz. bottle of saline solution (I know those dark bags under my eyes and maybe my very large stature makes me seem like a serious threat at 5:30 in the morning), I knew that heat and sun were just ahead.

And seriously, when I got off that plane and was hit with a burst of fresh heat and sun, I unwittingly let out a huge sigh of relief and before I could even be embarrassed, the two guys behind me did the very same thing. Yes, folks... This was some serious Vitamin D.

The house was right on the PGA West golf course and I met my four friends there where we pretty much spent the next three days slathered with sunscreen while laying out in the sun, talking, swimming, reading totally trashy magazines (Wow, Valerie Bertinelli is really looking great these days!), and drinking cocktails. Oh, and there was also way too much ABBA, Beyonce, and Black Eyed Peas going on, as well. And some dancing. And did I mention the cocktails? Oh, and did I also mention that it was 60 degrees warmer there? Though I think every single one of those degrees was necessary to dry up my cold and moldy Seattle insides.

We went shopping at 5pm and ate dinner at 10pm and our only concern was finding a place that was open (which was actually surprisingly difficult).

But besides drying out in the heat and hanging out with good friends, it was amazing to just get away from my life and to look at it from the outside for a few days. On the way down I started reading Mary Gaitskill's new book of short stories, Don't Cry. She's a writer I truly loved in graduate school, mostly for her raw honesty. And I don't think I've read her short stories since.

Before I left Samuel said to me, "How come you have to go so far away to be with your friends? Why can't you just have lunch or dinner with them and then come home?" And so I spent a few hours of guilt over this thinking, why am I so anxious to get so far away?

But there was something about being alone on a plane and reading her new stories that made me realize once again how easy it is to get so sucked into your own life that you forget what your core is really made of. And I was able to go back to my old self--pre family and job and mortgage--and get lost in thinking about stories I might write or concepts that were only just interesting to think about but had no purpose in my life other than just being what they were.

And then I realized, once I had a few hours to myself, that I needed pretty much at least twelve hours completely free of scheduling and planning and worrying about kids, family and responsibilities to actually feel relaxed and myself again. It's good to miss your life a little and to be able to come home refreshed and happy and excited about taking on new projects.

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Congratulations to Ellen, winner of the BabyLegs raffle! And I used a very um, random, random number generator from the appropriately URLed http://www.random.org/, so it's all kosher and honest pickings and stuff.

ski adventure to scottish lakes...

We survived our back-country ski adventure to Scottish Lakes, and I have to say, it was really fun. That said, I think that the managed expectations helped a bit, since how I pictured this trip was really me huddling in a lean-to with my three shivering kids and then every few hours hiking through the snow to a smelly outhouse.

So, it was much, much better than that.

Friday was a beautiful day to cross-country ski and it was warm enough to ski in our t-shirts. The kids managed wonderfully for the first two miles up the trail. Samuel scooted on ahead with his friend, Micah, and Tali trudged on up in her skiis, despite the fact that she's never cross-country skiied in her life. And Naomi promptly just fell asleep the moment she got zipped up in the pulk.

But then the kids remembered that we didn't have time to stop for lunch before getting to the trailhead, that I'd somehow neglected to realize that we needed a packed lunch, and we quickly ate through the snacks I'd bought at the last gas station stop. The hike got long and after a couple of hours, Tali was finished. Boaz added her to the pulk and pulled her along for a little longer and then we were rescued when more friends on snowmobiles took her up the rest of the way with them.

Much to my surprise, the cabins were very, very warm with the wood burning stoves and we even had to open our windows at night when the ten of us went to bed in our lofts. (Yes, ten.) Our hosts were lovely and we all ate dinner in a shared lodge.

But skiing the next day, I realized what it was that makes people ski uphill for miles to a place where you get no privacy, tromp in snow to your knees to pee in an outhouse, and hot tub in the snow. With a lot of kids. Oh right, and hang out in unseasonally blizzardy conditions.

It was amazing to ski in a place where even though there were trail markers, there were no tracks. The kids called the woods, "The Spooky Forest" but really only because they'd hardly experienced anyplace that was so untouched by marketing and consumerism. You could tell they were thrilled and terrified at the same time. And free. They could run outside and sled for hours, or go from cabin to cabin by themselves and we knew they were safe. And they loved the independence.

Plus, we saw real nature animals--not just the racoons and squirrels you see digging in the garbage in Seattle. Our friend Shai spotted a bird he named the Fatso 3000. You can see why.

I do have to note that the item that saved my sanity on this trip, aside from discovering a new love for Evan Walker, was the accidental discovery of the Travel John Jr. disposable urinal. For reals. I'd found it at the Right Start while shopping for a baby shower gift and when I saw it, I thought it'd be great for Naomi because it'd be so hard to drag a small child out in the middle of the night to an outhouse to pee when it's ten degrees and snowing and I'd save her the trauma.

The women in our cabin divvied up those pee bags (ironically, Naomi was the only one who refused to pee in them). I know I sound like an unrelenting advertisement, but I can seriously say that I stand behind (or on top of?) this product. And they didn't spill or smell. They just gelled up immediately!

Okay, enough potty talk.

The biggest bummer of the weekend is that a good handful of us came down with the flu and it's still dragging on. But that won't keep me from going back next year--with pee bags for everyone!

surfer buddha...

wordless wednesday...

gidget's revenge...

Okay, so the surfing...

This truly was the highlight of the trip, not only because it was generally just fun, but because learning to surf is something I've always wanted to do, but have always been too chicken to really get out and do it. Plus, it's nice to have fulfilled a New Year's resolution so early in the year, don't you think?

Samuel and I took our lesson together in a private lesson from Chris, this 50ish Hawaiian guy who runs a little surf school from this little thatched hut on the beach. Of course, it's in front of the Sheraton, so basically it's where all the haole tourists go to get their lessons so that they can feel like super cool surfers.

Hey, like me.

The lesson didn't start out that well.

Chris made us go feed the heron in the lagoon before even starting the lesson. He said it relaxed him before going out in the water and we sat on the bank for about ten minutes watching as he threw little pieces of bread to the fish so that the heron could quickly snap them up as they enjoyed what they thought were their treats. The whole thing made Samuel antsy.

"Can we go now?" he asked.

"Sssshhhhhhhhh," Chris shushed. "You have to be quiet or the heron won't eat."

Then, when we went out to scout out our spot, we had to wait another fifteen minutes for Chris while he talked with everyone on the beach.

It was very obvious to me that Sam and I were functioning at a different pace than this surfer.

But finally we were out there in the water, watching the waves and Chris began pushing us into them. I was shocked that I could catch them and stand up on my very first wave, which

felt humongous, but as you can see from the video below, was pretty much glorified whitewash. Still, I got up. And wave after wave gave me more confidence. It felt amazing.

After the first day, we went out twice again and while I noticed that it is so much harder to catch your own waves, it was tremendously fun and satisfying. I'm absolutely hooked.

But the thing that really struck me with that first day, was something that Chris said at the beginning of our lesson. He told me he usually didn't like taking moms and their kids together in a lesson because the moms have trouble paying attention to anything other than what their kid is doing. And he made me promise that I would let him take care of Samuel and I'd work on my own lesson.

"Sure, sure," I said, at the time anxious to get started.

But it was really harder than it looked. Having surfed before, Samuel was bored with the lesson and Chris started sending him out doing little surf tricks.

"You're sending him backwards?!" I squealed at one point.

"What's it to you?" he asked me, laughing. "I promise he won't drown. And you don't know this kid, anyway."

So I put my faith in this complete stranger and enjoyed my kid's crazy surf tricks from afar. And because of this, it let me absolutely enjoy myself. As a kid growing up in Southern California, I spent entire summers in the waves, body surfing and swimming and just playing, and because I was on my own that day, I felt that free again as I tried to catch waves and worked on my balance. I absolutely felt like myself. For those few hours, I wasn't a mom or wife or a daughter, friend, or consultant... I was just concentrating on the task at hand and it was incredibly freeing.

So, the video... Be kind. The wave is considerably smaller than it felt this first time in.

nothing like a little hula to soften the blow...

So I had all these plans to write about our trip, which was amazing and fun and relaxing, and I especially wanted to write about the surfing, which was seriously amazing. But then work got in the way and the deadlines sort of pushed the blogging to the side, and then the kids started complaining that I hadn't gone to the store since we've gotten home and well, I sort of thought that the sand on the floor from the suitcases was a nice contrast to the SNOW that fell outside last night and pushed out the school day a few hours, but the kids started complaining about all the crunching beneath their feet, so I got distracted from the blog...

But I'll get there.

And in the meantime, enjoy this little hula lesson and pretend you're going to the Hookie Lau...

last day on the beach...

Today is our last day on the beach and we're getting ready to go back to reality. Our lives are already seeping into our vacation. Samuel pulled out his hefty homework folder and his assigments are strewn about the condo along with bathing suits and flip-flops. Boaz is on the phone with work and I'm scheduling appointments through the next few weeks.

But for this last day, as we get ready to head to the beach, we're all putting away our homework and work until we get on the plane tomorrow so that we can get one last full day of relaxation in. Boaz and I are going off to surf together for a few hours (heh heh heh, that sounds so funny to say that I'm surfing, but I'll give you the update on that when I post the videos), and the kids are going to hang out with their grandparents and friends at the beach. They've got plans to dig in the sand until they hit the middle of the earth so we've got to get started soon.

As soon as we get home and retrieve the cord, I'll post videos of our surfing and hula adventures... It'll be my attempt to relive these beach days over and over.

paradise is all that it's cracked up to be...

We're spending the week in Kauai visiting my parents in Poipu. And truly, the minute we stepped off the plane into the balmy air, we felt like we were on vacation. Especially since our flight over involved one vomity child, one extremely wild toddler and a lot of drama.

And now, we're in this amazing condo across the street from the beach and we can see the waves break from our lanai. I'm in heaven, I tell you.

taking off to san francisco...

This morning I'm getting on a plane to San Francisco to go to my friends' Jessica and Jackie's wedding. I will be bringing one carryon, my trashy novel that I can't put down (and also whose title I am not quite sure I can admit to), and my friend Kim, who so unselfishly volunteered to come with me when Boaz and I realized that it was really hard for the both of us to skip town and leave three kids behind for two nights.

I will not be bringing the kids, their things including boosters, the carseat, diapers and wipes, a pack and play, or my computer. Or Boaz, who I'm sad to not bring along since San Francisco is really where we met (at least if you ask him).

A girl's weekend is definitely in order. We've been scheming and plotting this trip for months and now I cannot believe that it's tomorrow. We've talked about the restaurants we'll go to, sights we'll see, drinks we'll have, shopping we'll do, and I'm especially excited about having some time to re-explore my old stomping grounds and see wonderful old friends.

But hearing my kids sound nervous about me leaving sets me a bit on edge. Samuel's been counting down this entire past week.
"This is the third to last night I'll say goodnight to you before you go to San Francisco," he told me earlier in the week as I was tucking him in.

"Two nights," I told him, "and one of those nights you're having a sleepover with a friend."

"But you won't be home," he said dramatically. "I wouldn't miss you if I knew you were home." I know it was all for my benefit--it was that "I will torture you because I love you" syndrome.

But now I feel nervous, too. Pathetically, this is really only the second time I've left all three of them (and in the loving, able hands of their father, but that fact really doesn't stop one's imagination from running amok). I'm sure they'll be fine, but it seriously is a bit physically painful to leave them.

I guess that's what motherhood is about... You can't even anticipate a decadent weekend with a girlfriend without being bogged down about what's going on at home.

That said, I'm sure that after the first five minutes in the airport where I'm not racing to my gate, holding a kid on my hip, lugging three bags and my boarding passes in hand, late because we left someone's shoe in the security tray and had to go back... I'm sure after not doing that, I'll be just fine.

And then I think a vodka and soda on the plane will help a bit, too. And also the shopping, and the museums, and the Mission burritos, and Italian food in North Beach and those fresh biscotti, and the music, and the hotel where I can sleep all night without waking up...

See you on Sunday!

surf city USA...

We spend the last week of every summer (or at least for the past five years) on the Oregon coast with the same friends. It's a great way to close out the summer--some sun and beach, usually a little rain. But the rain did not stop Boaz and crew from hitting the waves and deciding that this was the year that B and Samuel would teach everyone to surf.

The first lesson involved learning how to put on the wet suit, which apparently is not an obvious thing since five of our six surfers put theirs on wrong. Four were backward ("I wondered why the zipper had such a long pull in front!") and one was inside out... But after some minor corrections, they were off!

The kids were amazingly brave, with all of them being able to stand up on their boards for at least a short bit. Olin and Samuel definitely looked the part of little surfer rats and Gracie and Claire definitely looked cooler than Gidget ever did.

And Samuel managed to really improve on what he'd learned during his first lessons in Kauai... I know that Boaz has sugar plum father/son surfing trips floating in his head.

Next year, Tali and I will get on the boards, as well, since learning to surf is definitely on my bucket list.

But for now, I'm satisfied with the long run I had by myself on the beach this morning. It just does not get much better than this...

We're all going to have quite the rude awakening next week when school begins.

the roadshow continues... next stop--the oregon coast

The air-travel-alone-with-three-children-gods must have been watching over me yesterday because almost as soon as I got my red, puffy from crying because I was leaving my cousin sister face on the airplane with my three kids and then got them settled in their seats, Naomi's eyes drooped and she passed out for two hours. This is a child who hasn't had a nap for a week so I think she was just grateful to be sitting and buckled in.

And then I looked at Tali sitting in the row behind me who had made friends with the two kids she was sitting with. Samuel was playing his Nintendo DS, despite the fact that I'd taken it away for pretty much the rest of his life for disrespectful behavior. But it didn't matter and I let it slide because for the first time in months, I was free to start the novel that I'd been carrying around in my purse for just in case.

So I read for two hours. And then Naomi woke up and the kids began to get restless, but not so much so and I was refreshed. Which makes me firmly believe that if I could get just two hours a day to myself everyday, I'd be a completely different parent. Now I just need to find someone willing to let me have that...

Anyway, by the time we landed at Sea-Tac, we were all in good moods and excited to see Boaz who pulled up in the car with the Thule already packed and ready to go. And then without passing Go or going home, we were on our way to the Oregon coast for four days with a stop in Portland for the night on the way.

It was the perfect transition... First of all, Portland is an amazing city. Somehow it's hippy and cosmopolitan all at once. We ate at an amazing sushi place and the kids actually ate sushi, which makes me very excited about future eating out adventures. And then today after stopping at Powell's Books where we bought a bunch of great new and used books for the kids in an effort to lure them away from brainsucking television shows, as well as a copy of the latest O. Henry short fiction prize winners for me, we headed down to the coast for four days of beach play on our annual trip with our friends the Wolfs and the Morris's.

I'm starting to get very used to this transient lifestyle... And the kids are totally loving it. Six different beds in three weeks and Samuel is thrilled to have been in three states yesterday.

Wonder how I'm going to get myself back to work next month...

postcard from camp runamucka...

Dear Moms and Dads,

Camp is great. I love it here and am not homesick. Yet.
Here is what I've been doing.

Love,
Amy

we're off to the land of cheese, packers, and brewers...

Tomorrow the kids and I leave for our visit to see Princess Mikkimoto and her son Ben, as well as the rest of our very lovely family in the midwest. It should be a very interesting and fun-filled trip and the kids could NOT get to sleep tonight because they're so wound up.

Expect some interesting posts over the next week... But what I really want to know is, what exactly is a Packer?

the great wolf lodge is an alternate universe...

I think that after a day at home, I've officially recovered from the Great Wolf Lodge. We all had an amazing time, seriously, but for the first twelve or so hours at the lodge, Ally and I had to readjust our mentalities in order to survive. Seriously.

The place is bizarre. I'm not sure what I expected, but their Web site made it look like heaven. Parents were lounging on deck chairs happily watching their kids, children are smiling and laughing, and there is even a shot of a small child sleeping, exhausted, on his mom. There are photos of buffets, high lobby ceilings, the "Iron Horse" fitness center (that we never even pretended we'd use), and luxurious rooms.

These are the photos used to lure unsuspecting parents into their lair...

I was shocked to pull up to the lodge to find a glorified and enlarged Mariott decked out entirely with a North Woods theme, complete with huge wood carved statues of wolves in front. We wait in a Disneyland-sized line to check in, collect our wristbands (which we immediately all put on too tightly) and drag our brood of four to our Kids Kabin room.

(Can I just note for the record that I will consider the room's cuteness--or kuteness-- EVEN if they had decided to use proper spelling. K'mon Great Wolf!)

Ally and I find the room disappointing. We'd splurged on a big room with a special kids room, but found it small and sort of barren, but definitely woodsy. However, when we look to see how the kids are reacting, they're ecstatic. Their special kid room is a little log cabin tucked into a generic hotel room, complete with a bunkbed, daybed, painted walls, and their own... gasp... flat screen television and remote. The three big kids each claim a bed, without fighting, and settle in happily playing with Legos while we unpack.

"This is the best vacation ever!" Samuel says. We haven't even left the room.

We head down to find the waterpark. I wonder if there seemed like there would be more big slides, but the kids are in heaven. There's a wave pool, a huge tree house to climb on with buckets of water to dump and pulleys and levers everywhere. There's a toddler section that is just as fun for the big kids, fountains coming out from the ground that Naomi loved to step on, and a big regular pool with basketball hoops and floating animals to climb on. We haven't even touched the slides yets. We continue nonstop for hours until we're exhausted and then emerge from the heated and indoor waterpark into the hotel, change our clothes quickly and then head to the buffet dinner where all four kids sit nicely, use their best manners, and eat like little great wolves. The food is decent, the decor is equivalent to that of a school cafeteria. It doesn't matter because we're drinking wine.


After dinner there's an animatronic show about the rhythm of life (which seemed suspiciously like a knock-off of "The Lion King" theme) and then story time. They had our kids full attention, even Naomi's.

Then, the kids played this Magiquest game where they use purchased magic wands to fulfill quests and adventures. Suddenly, all of the tacky decor comes to life as the kids literally run around the entire hotel with the wands waving them at everything. The art on the walls light up, bear rugs come to life, treasure chests open and crystals ignite. These runes are all over the hotel, on every floor, in the stairwells, in the lobby, in the restaurants and kids are running up and down the halls with wands and capes. And then brilliantly, at 10pm, the game is turned off. Time for bed. Or for some television in your own Kid Kabin.

Ally and I suspended schedules for this trip. I'm usually sort of a slave to schedules because I know they keep my kids sane. But oddly at The Lodge, the kids were on their best behavior and feeling great on their own schedule, all while being extremely indulged. Huh? They seemed possessed.
We'd tell them it was time to take a break from the water and they'd nod and say okay. We'd say it was time to go to bed and Samuel responded by saying, "Oh good!"

So what's up with the water at this place?

Ally and I finally realized that it must be because while most of the world caters to adults with gestures to kids in the forms of a desert bar or a kiddie ride, The Great Wolf Lodge caters to kids with a small gesture to adults in the form of a very inaccessible and expensive full bar. This place did not even have clocks around, so we never knew what time it was, nor was there a newspaper to be found.

So we embraced the challenge. The kids passed out in their beds when they were so exhausted, they couldn't stand it any longer. They swam and played in the water until their fingers and toes turned to prunes. They ate dessert with their meals and didn't ask for more. Samuel and I went out at 9pm one night to ride the scariest water slides over and over, screaming at the top of our lungs, until the park closed. And seriously, every so often each one of them would turn to us, or grab our hands and spontaneously say thank you, or I love you, or give us a hug. It was just like the ads--all happy family and good parenting...
And Ally and I had so much fun, too. We caught up on each other's lives, picked up where we left off, and had a ridiculously fun time playing with the kids in the water, at the arcade, talking at night... We got to be kids again for a few days, too.

I have no illusions about the Great Wolf. It is not a family vacation. It is a kid vacation. But I'll go back because a vacation where the kids are so happy that I get a chance to be a kid, too, is worth it.

**note that there are no pictures of the waterpark part of the trip because, um, we forgot to take them since we were too busy playing.**

going to the lodge...

Even though it's practically the end of the summer (can you EVEN believe that???), we start our big vacationing marathon tomorrow. Our first stop? The Great Wolf...

My dearest old college friend, Ally, and her son Nick flew up here from LA to visit and tomorrow we head down to the The Great Wolf Lodge for two nights and three days of indoor waterpark family fun.

Yes, I said indoor. An inside waterpark. Inside. Where the sun don't shine. And the oddest thing is that even though at first that was a turn-off, now that it's raining and chilly again in Seattle, I'm actually glad that we still get to romp around the water in our bathing suits during the season that is called Summer, but isn't all that hot. I don't care if we have to do it inside.

The other thing about The Great Wolf is that besides being incredibly Northwoods theme-based with theme-based names of activities all featuring words like Buckhorn,Great Lights, Camp, and Critter, and posessing a huge wolf pack buffet (not so good from the double dub perspective), but you also must stay at the resort in order to participate in all of the water fun. Otherwise, we'd never stay. (I think...) I imagine it'll be like three days in the Chuck E. Cheese catacombs, but with a full bar.

But since Ally and I tromped off to the Sinai desert together, in addition to countless other hapless adventures, we'll manage this and probably have a lot of fun with the kids.

Did I mention there's a full bar? See you on Wednesday with lots of pictures!

unruly kids get family booted off flight...

Okay, this is pretty much my worst nightmare ever. You're travelling with the kids and by the time you meet your connection, the airline basically says, 'There is no way you're bringing those crazy monsters back onto one of our flights.'

I have really no idea what happened except for what I saw on the Kiro news clip, but aside from the fact that getting kicked off would be a major drag (No! not 24 more hours of travel with the kids!) and expensive (especially if you really can't afford it), how embarrassing would it be to have your children's bad behavior publicized to the world?! Shudder...

Seriously, though... One of my first instincts is to maim my fellow passengers on a flight when they:

a.) take one look at me and my three children embarking on a plane with all of our crap and either roll their eyes in disgust or immediately try to get the flight attendant to change their seats.

or

b.) overreact to one of the kids' restless, but accidental, kicks to the back of the seat.

But at the same time, I am also very careful to make sure that my kids are as well-behaved as possible. I know that kids get a bad rap on airplanes and mine have been responsible for a few not so pleasant flights for people.

For example, the time that Samuel as a baby knocked over a very grumpy man's G&T onto his laptop because he was a lapbaby (Samuel, not the man), and we were squeezed into the middle seat. I'll bet that guy regretted not giving us his aisle seat for more room.

Or there were the flights when the kids as young babies cried for long periods of time because they couldn't get to sleep or get comfortable.

Or there were the flights when they've had to get up numerous times, squeezing past the unfortunate person in the aisle seat, to go back to the cute little bathroom with all the buttons that you can reach from the potty.

And when I travel without kids, I do seriously appreciate parents who help their kids understand how to behave in public. And I know it's not all that easy.

Next month I'm flying solo with the kids to go visit my cousin sister, Becky, and while it seemed like an effortless feat in April when I made my reservation, now I'm a little concerned (read terrified) about being publicly called out for possessing unruly child passengers. I know the case in the news must have been an extreme case, and my kids are generally good, but they do love those little lavatories.

So if you have any good ideas for keeping three kids between the ages of two and eight occupied for about four hours (aside from drugging them), let me know. Right now I'm planning on cheapy new little toys to parcel out, the Nintendo DS, and a video for Tali, but my toddler is my challenge.

And if you do end up hearing about me in the news, take pity. You know I tried.