For the past 3 weeks, Cameron has been stressed to the max with school. When Cameron gets stressed, he tends to go a little farther over to the side of "control freak." And so, it was every day for 21 consecutive days that he asked me what time our flight left to go to Utah. And every time, I answered 10:55 in the morning. By the third week, I asked him to write it down so he could stop asking me. I was really annoyed!
The morning of the flight, we left the house spotless at 9am. We picked up our friend Wade. He was going to drive us and our van to the airport. I sat in the back so Wade and Cam could talk and flipped blankly through my phone. I checked my e-mail and noticed a message from the airline. There had been a flight change. I scrolled through the message skimming as I went and noticed it said our flight left at 10:05! I told Cameron. To his credit he didn't freak out. He drove a little faster, and focused a little more. And we started crunching numbers. It was 9:20. We were stuck in traffic 10 minutes away from the airport. Yuck.
As I read the e-mail a little further, I realized that the flight time never changed. It was always at 10:05. The flight change was "flight 720" is now "flight 659" or something totally useless like that. I fessed up to my mistake. Or rather the 21 mistakes I had made in the days leading up to this. And Cameron again responded with patience. I didn't expect that. But I was really grateful. I felt pretty dumb already.
There wasn't much time for sulking though, so I put my problem solving hat on and plugged the airport into the navigation on my phone so I could check traffic and help us get to the airport as quickly as possible. And that was when I started screaming at Cameron to take the upcoming exit. While he and his friend in the front seat knew very well not to take that exit. I was pretty convincing though, because he took it. And I watched another ten minutes roll onto our estimated arrival time. Oy. I have always thought my dad was full of it when his preferred teammate on the Amazing Race was my brother J.T.. I always thought I had fabulous navigation skills. In this exact moment, I was yanked out of that denial so fast. I am a terrible navigator.
And to his credit, Cameron didn't get upset at me, again. His patience is saintly. And that is not one bit exaggerated.
We rolled up to the airport at 9:40. I told Cameron to grab as many bags as he could carry and run to check us in. I would figure out how to unload everything and get it up there. We were in high gear. And we had a ton of stuff. 2 carry-ons, 2 backpacks, 2 diaper bags, 2 car seats, 2 babies, and a stroller. That all needed to be transported by us up to our gate. I loaded the diaper bags in the stroller along with the boys and took the elevator up to where Cameron was, dropped that load off and went back down for our rolling suitcase and the carseats. By the time I got up to the check-in, Cameron let me know we had missed the check-in window and we couldn't print boarding passes.
I asked the employee behind the counter if we could run for it. We had 25 minutes! We had to try! And the next flight wasn't for another 9 hours. Yuck. So we took off running to gate C20. 15 gates away. Cameron took the stroller and everything we could load on it. I grabbed everything else. He ran. I hobbled. A very kind employee took everything from me and ran to Cameron. And then Cam looked at me in horror and said "I left the duffel bag!" And so, I kicked off my shoes and ran 15 gates back to where we had tried to check in initially. Deep down I was grateful he had made an error of any size. And as I sprinted, I caught sight of myself in one of the floor to ceiling windows. And I looked good. "I've trained for this!" I thought. I had just finished insanity. 15 gates? no problem! And then I picked up the bag, and tried to run back. And I about died. It was heavy! I went as fast as I possibly could and asked the people in the line at security if we could go in front of them. We looked like a circus. And they happily obliged.
Disassembling everything to get through security was insane. We were moving so fast! Bag after bag went through the scanner. The stroller was folded down. Boys on our hips, we repacked everything. Put shoes on, stuffed everything in any open bag. Gray wouldn't sit down in the stroller,s o he didn't get buckled. Cam said "We have to run!" I had the super heavy duffel bag and the two car seats. I physically could. not. run. And I said "GO! STOP THE PLANE!" And the love of my life took off running through the airport, 15 gates back, to gate C35. One hand steering a double stroller loaded down with two boys, and every bag imaginable and pulling the rolling suitcase behind him with the other. He was sprinting. I have never been so attracted to him in my life.
He was wearing yellow. I was moving as fast as I could. Which was not fast at all. I saw Cam make it to the gate and come back into the hallway looking for me. He started gesturing with his arm, "Come on! Come on!" I turned to the very next person I saw walking toward me, which happened to be a man holding nothing but a briefcase. I asked him if he was in a hurry. "No." "Well, I am! Will you take this bag and run with me to that gate?" And we did.
Down the ramp we had the biggest smiles on our faces, ever. We sat in our seats at 10:04. They closed the door and away we went. Sweaty, but on time. We opened those little AC vents as far as they would go and put our faces right up to them.
And we were pumped! We felt invincible.
Pshh. Flying with twins. No big.
