Flying Solo (Literally) with the Kiddos

On Friday, our last full day in Portugal, Pete left the apartment at 4:30am to catch his flight back to Chicago for his cousins' memorial service. When we were discussing whether he should fly home for it, his main concern (and mine) was leaving me on my own with the kids in a foreign country. I channeled Emily's amazing mother and thought, "I can do this!"

It was just one day alone with them in a beautiful, sunny beach town, much preferable to cold, dreary Amsterdam! How hard could it be?! We spent the morning at the beautiful park where there was a massive playground. I circled Jude with Maeve in the stroller until she fell asleep. We made our lives simple and had Pizza Hut (horray!) for lunch and later Burger King for dinner :) We played in the apartment in the afternoon and then went to the beach. I sat with Maeve while Jude made trip after trip down to the water's edge to fill his bucket in the calm sea. We made friends with some other little kids on the beach. It was the first day of carnival and the town celebrated with all of the children dressed up parading the streets like Halloween. So Jude got to play with a fairy and spiderman while asking me over and over again why we didn't bring his Mickey costume... 

One final evening spent packing, tidying and drinking wine, wishing that our trip wasn't over so soon.

The idea of flying alone with the kiddos was also daunting, but Pete had taken the majority of our luggage with him so I had just our essentials to lug around. And then Pete's coworker offered me a ride to the airport Saturday morning and escorted me into the terminal. She gave me the biggest compliant when I saw her this week at ISA. She said she couldn't believe how calm I was about flying on my own. And I really was calm. With the stroller, we got to go to a special security screening area that was empty. Jude was so good. Sticking with me in the airport, walking everywhere and then happily watching his shows and playing games on the Ipad on the flight. Maeve fell asleep in the carrier as I paced the aisle on the plane and then kind strangers helped me get my luggage off the plane and all the way to the baggage claim. I was happy to have help at that point as Jude reached his level of tiredness where he starts to act naughty- running away from me and refusing to listen. Boy was I happy when we got home and I was able to put both kids down for their nap and get into bed myself. And happier still when Pete arrived home Monday after I'd gotten Maeve to day care, Jude to school and had started working. Single parenting is hard, but now I know it can be done!