The sky's the limit

I have two great fears in this life. The first is spiders (Did you see the enormous, venomous, as-big-as-your-head new species that was just found in Sri Lanka? Gross! See?). The second is air travel with a toddler.

Recently, I have conquered one of these deep fears and I couldn’t be any happier about it.

For Spring Break, we headed to the great state of Texas (Yee-haw!) to see my two sister-in-laws who I miss each and every day and the two cutest little nephews this world has ever seen. I was thrilled about the trip but scared to death about the flight. It would be the first flight we have taken with our 15-month-old Braxton and no matter how prepared you are for toddler travel, you never really can predict what kind of mood your little one’s going to be in on any particular day. You just have to grin and bear it and hope for the best.

Team Brown started the journey super prepared. We had enough Cheerios to feed a small army. I had perfectly timed out the pouring of milk into sippy cups to make sure all was nice and chilled as we arrived through security. That’s when I knew it would get tricky. I expected the nice man at the security checkpoint to stop me Argo-style, take me into a back room and demand to see legal documents (all of which I did pack) to prove that this little mini-me did in fact come from my womb. I was ready. Take me back. Surprisingly, he smiled and sent me on my way, “Have a good trip,” he chimed. That was easy.

Next it was onward to the conveyer belt of doom. Since I had enough liquid in my bag to refill Lake Michigan, I was sure we were going to kicked right on out of line. Surprisingly, this step was uneventful too. They even smiled and waved to Braxton as we passed through the scanner. That was easy too.

And before I knew it, my husband and I and our little dude were at our gate having a bite to eat and sharing a raspberry lemonade like it was our day job to fly. Twenty minutes and a couple of handfuls of puffs later and we were sitting on our flight, ready to go.

 Now don’t get me wrong, every minute was not perfect. There were whines and a few tears and moments when I questioned if a 14-hour drive would’ve really been so bad. (It would’ve been!) But all in all, my little man was an airplane rockstar. An hour into the flight and two board books later, he was fast asleep. Five minutes later, my husband and I were out too.

So, what’s my point about all of this? I know, good for me that I have a kid who is well-behaved on planes, right? Well, there’s a much bigger reason why I’m sharing this, It’s so you don’t let fear stand in the way of leading a fun and happy life. If we would’ve refused to travel just because our baby was small, we would’ve missed out on the best time. Remember, baby’s go where you go and they are happy as clams just to be near you. So, loosen up those restrictions a little bit and go have a good time with your tot. Conquering your fears can be the best thing you ever do. (P.S. I’m still not getting anywhere near an eight-legged little creature, though.)