When I finish packing for this [expletive deleted] cruise, I will need a vacation.

That is what I found myself muttering as I brushed my hair back out of my eyes. In doing so, I wrote on my face with the permanent Sharpie marker that I’d been using to label Ziploc bags full of clothes in every size, for every possible sort of climate. Mike Tyson’s facial tattoo ain’t got nothin’ on me.

This Ziploc thing is me fighting my nature: I am a naturally disorganized person. I am definitely one of those people who sees my messiness as a sign of my creativity and latent genius. My lack of organization (or, as my mother has called it somewhat pejoratively, “slovenliness”), never bothered me back in my pre-child life. When I was looking for my black lace bra, I’d know it was probably on either the chair in my bedroom or under my dresser. Problem solved. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: traveling with kids, Vacation

Getting to and from the airport is sometimes a challenge when we visit my in-laws in Maryland; we are six people and they don’t have a minivan. In an effort to make things easier on my in-laws, we’ve been flying in and out of the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in DC when visiting them, since there is a metro right at the airport, instead of flying into the Baltimore Washington International Airport.

So that’s what we did last Friday when we landed in D.C. Sure, it wasn’t a breeze taking the metro from the airport to their town in Silver Spring with four cranky kids, three suitcases, three backpacks, and a guitar after traveling for two and half hours on an airplane, but it was doable and we know helpful it was to Nana and Zaide. We decided, however, to make the trip to the airport more convenient for the way home, and so we came up with the perfect, not to mention, stress-free grand plan. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: airplanes, traveling with kids

Flying internationally can be rough. It’s a lot of hours to be cooped up in an oversized bus with 300 strangers, stale air, and chicken or beef. But flying internationally with children is not unlike the process of childbirth itself. Hours of torture followed by sleepless nights and only a fleeting sense of accomplishment.

It begins many months before. You buy your tickets knowing there will be some amount of discomfort involved though you figure, how hard could it be? People have been flying with their kids for at least half a century. But seasoned parents are frank with you. Get your sleep now. Don’t get too excited about your personal video player since you’ll be nursing your baby the entire flight. You nod but secretly you think it will be different for you. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: airplanes, family, flying, traveling with kids

“I’d rather shove a fork in my eye.”

That was my response when my husband said his parents called and asked if we’d like to come spend the last Shabbat of Sukkot with them in the ultra-Orthodox community my husband, children and I recently moved out of. It wasn’t any one thing in particular that gave me the knee-jerk, panic-stricken reaction to shout, “NO!”

In part, it was the fact that my relationship with my in-laws has been cordial but not particularly warm. It was the idea of spending 24 hours in a place where I’d never felt like myself. And much more basic than that, I hate packing my boys and all their belongings up and taking them somewhere unfamiliar to spend the night. They don’t ever sleep well, which means I don’t sleep well and that translates into one miserable weekend for everyone. My husband said, “Think about it and we’ll let them know tomorrow.” Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting, Traditions
• Tags: family, family meal, mother-in-law, Orthodox, shabbat, sleep problems, traveling with kids

It seems silly to call a trip with your toddler-aged children a “vacation,” right? I mean, we all know what “vacation” literally means — “freedom from duty, responsibility” — and hence, flying to the sunny shores of Florida with two 16-month-old children definitely shouldn’t qualify, right?

Wrong! I am here to tell you that I did indeed take a vacation with my husband and our twin 16-month-old toddlers last week. And no, it wasn’t always pretty, but YES, I did manage to relax and enjoy my time, despite their presence. So, if you’re planning a last summer hurrah over Labor Day, here are a few tips:

1. Snack cups. Seriously, the girls love these things. I don’t know if it has to do with being “in charge” of something, or an ownership thing, but the girls love to walk around with their fists clenched tightly around a snack cup (full of snacks, obviously). So we gave them snack cups at the beach, in the car, at the pool, etc. This occupied them far longer than you might expect. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: featured, survival tips, traveling with kids, Vacation

My husband and I took our daughters (ages 3.5 and just barely 2) on a 10 hour car drive for our summer vacation last week. Yes, I said 10 hours. Each way.

To answer your initial questions, yes, we all survived, and yes, my husband and I are still sane. I think.

We’ve made the 3.5 hour drive down to New York to visit the girls’ great-grandparents three to four times each year since my older daughter was born. Between those drives and our most recent vacation, I have decided that I am now an expert on road trips, and well qualified to give advice to all of you idiots brave folks who have decided to venture forth on the great American highways this summer. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: road trip, survival tips, traveling with kids

Bonjour, Geneva.

Traveling overseas is intimidating. And I say this as someone whose last several international destinations have included Ghana, India, and South Africa.

I hadn’t ventured abroad since early 2010, for a fairly obvious and adorable reason. But my husband recently learned that he needed to spend nine days in Geneva for work. I didn’t like the idea of our being separated (with a toddler, four hands beat two), and Lila and I had no pressing engagements, so I suggested a family adventure. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Language, Travel, traveling with kids, Vacation

When I told people my plan for winter break was to take a week-long trip to France with my husband and our 5-month-old baby girl, the facial expressions I received from them in response were complex. They were a mix of envy (after all, who doesn’t want to go to France?), skepticism (but who would want to go to France–or even to get on an airplane–with a 5-month-old baby?), and something I’d characterize as a raised eyebrow, “Huh! Well, good luck with that.”

Well, not only did I return to tell the tale, but also, I am here to recount that we had an amazing time–even better than we expected. Baby G, aka Wonder Baby, really knocked our socks off with her general awesomeness. And France wasn’t bad either. This vacation worked beautifully for a few simple reasons, listed below.

1. French People Love Babies.

I suppose that people all over the world love babies. But the French have a particular baby-fetish going on. Perhaps it’s their aesthetic sense of everything being perfect and “just so,” or the fact that their adorable clothes look even cuter in small sizes. Who knows?

The point is that a baby is apparently the accoutrement of choice this season in France. Any snooty anti-Americanism that might have been there otherwise flew out the window when the locals caught sight of our daughter’s gummy smile. Everywhere we went, people smiled, cooed, and fluttered all over our baby… and were genuinely thoughtful. Air France’s baby bassinet let her sleep the whole night–and though I was a little bitter that the baby got the flatbed arrangement rather than me, the entire plane and I appreciated it. A waiter at breakfast saw her attempting to play with my coffee cup, and dashed over to provide a little box of cereal as a makeshift rattle. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Travel, traveling with kids

For those of you who don’t read the New York Times on a regular basis, allow me to inform you that there’s a lot of hating going on about kids traveling on airplanes. This article opens with the salvo:

HORRIBLE. Annoying. Distasteful. Miserable. These are a few of the words used by readers to describe traveling with children — whether their own or someone else’s — on planes in response to my Nov. 6 article, ‘Are We There Yet? When Families Fly.’

You know those looks you think you’re getting from everyone on the plane as you board with your kids – you know, the ones where you feel like everyone on the plane wants to murder you with their plastic forks? You’re not paranoid: apparently, you’re right. Out of all the responses to the first article sent to the paper, “most wrote in to complain about how miserable it has become to fly with children on domestic airlines.”

I don’t doubt that people can hate other people’s children. I have been guilty of this myself. But I do think the sample pool here is somewhat skewed.

Imagine, if you will, the following scenario. Over a steaming cup of café latte, a couple reads the Sunday New York Times. NPR plays on the radio in the background, and the tranquility is interrupted only by the timer beep which signifies that the couple’s mozzarella and zucchini frittata is done. One member of the couple says, while reading the New York Times travel section, “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with travel…children on planes. By God, I’m going to write a letter to the editor.”

Here’s a little secret: this breakfast scenario is something bordering on a sexual fantasy for the parents of little kids. Parents of toddlers do not read the Sunday New York Times. They do not make café latte or frittatas. NPR is not happening. These sad souls, instead, are on their hands and knees in puddles of juice that emerged from insufficiently-sealed sippy cups. They are cleaning Cheerios out of cracks in the kitchen floor. And I can assure you that they would rather brush their hair or go to the bathroom than write an eloquent letter to the editor defending the rights of children and families. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: airplanes, Travel, traveling with kids

I'd like my vacation to look like this. What do I need to bring?

I’m not sure where I first heard it, but it’s true: traveling by yourself, or with another consenting adult, is a vacation. Traveling with kids is no vacation – it’s a trip, in every sense of the word.

That being said, traveling with children does get easier as kids get older. If you only have toddlers, suffice it to say that you have no idea how great the difference is between a plane trip with someone who poops in their pants and with someone who knows how to do “scene selection” on a portable DVD player. The latter is far more pleasant and can even have you throwing an aspirational Vanity Fair into your carry-on luggage.

Allow me to brag a little bit about the wonders of self-sufficient-child travel. On a comparatively recent plane trip with my two boys, I reached the Nirvana of plane travel with children. The boys actually sat across the aisle from myself and my husband, alone, and watched a DVD together, giggling all the way. Not only that, but they sat with some other random adult, who commented repeatedly on how smart and polite the boys were. I mean, is that not every parent’s fantasy? Who even needed the vacation after that?

Now, however, I have a wonderful 4-month-old daughter, and am about to face a traveling adventure: we’re going on a plane. I’ve never been on a plane with a baby. Okay, I have – other people’s screaming babies, who I’ve unmercifully hated and attempted to avoid. I’m now ashamed to admit to having acted in that horrible way people do on planes toward babies (you know what I mean: “I’ve never seen a creature like that before in my life, and am certainly not going to admit any degree of empathy or even the fact that I once was someone like this.”). In fact, I dimly recall having written for Kveller on baby-free sections on planes and how utterly unsympathetic I’ve been to those frazzled parent travelers toting two tons of baby crap plus baby.

And now, I will be one of you. Go ahead, laugh all you want. Payback is a bitch.

For a trip of a mere three days to Virginia, Baby G will travel with more stuff than Elle Woods would pack for an entire summer on the French Riviera. It’s really astounding. Changes of clothing for those pooptastic moments, hats, bibs, bottles, bottle brush, formula (horror!), pacifiers, car seat, car seat stroller, little baby hairbrush, medicines for every conceivable baby ailment (pu pu pu), moisturizers, tush ointment, wipes, and, of course, diapers.

I know I have been unkind to you all and am now sorry. Please show me mercy and help a mother out here: what am I forgetting to bring????

More tips about travel with children here.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Travel, traveling with kids, Vacation