Iron Men and Iron Momma

Happy Fatherhood Friday everyone! If you’re new to my husband’s blog or missed the P.S. in last week’s post, this is Busy-Mom-E, wife of Busy-Dad-E and mother of Big Brother and Little Brother. Thanks to dad-blogs.com for giving my husband something to do creating this great forum for devoted, blogging dads.

To set the record straight, anything flattering Busy-Dad-E says about me is ABSOLUTELY TRUE. Anything less than flattering is NOTHING BUT A PACK OF LIES.

As a preface, some time ago I volunteered to fly solo to California with both boys to meet up with Busy-Dad-E at a conference. No, I was not drinking at the time. Yes, Dad-E must’ve slipped me a “WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?” pill prior to that decision.

And, if that wasn’t enough, after we’d booked the flights I realized the morning of my flight was my favorite race of the year (a 5-mile run where you get roses and chocolate at the finish line.) I mean, I’d probably run a race if you told me there MIGHT be chocolate at the finish line.

Given our recent experiences with airline travel, I was prepared for the worst.

As is often the case with children, they never fail to surprise us. Turns out, I got to travel with a RENOWNED SUPERHERO and his sidekick.

When I returned to my parent’s house from the race, Big Brother said, “Grampap-E and I watched Iron Man!”

My first thought was, “You watched WHAT (he’s only 4)?” My dad clarified that they only watched the scene where Iron Man put on his suit. “Okay, that is all right.” I figured.

In retrospect, I should’ve known right away that I was travelling with a super hero, because in contrast to Big Brother’s usual screaming fit about taking off his shoes, he was quite helpful getting through security.

Before the long flight to California, we got something to eat and sat down by our gate. I let both boys out of the double stroller.

Big Brother immediately began running in circles shouting, “I’m IRON MAN!!!” Little Brother thought this was GREAT, and started running after him. For quite a long time, they just chased each other in circles, laughing and giggling (Yay! Children chasing each other now = tired children later.)

I said, “Big Brother, please use your inside voice.” His reply was, “I’m not Big Brother, I’m IRON MAN!” (Apparently, Little Brother was also dubbed (Little) Iron Man. Dubbing consisted of having a Cars sticker on your shirt)

After we finished eating, I took the boys to the family bathroom to get everyone ready for the long flight. I told them we were also going to change into our jammies!

Big Brother said, “Are they going to be Iron Man jammies?” I said, “Well, all we have are Spiderman jammies so we will have to use our imagination.”

That seemed to work just fine. Big Brother said he was very happy to put on his “Iron Man suit.”

Finally, we started to board the airplane. Each time we passed an empty seat, Big Brother Iron Man would say, “This looks like a good spot!” Just before we finally found our actual seat, someone greeted Big Brother saying, “Hey, Ironman!” (Apparently his antics were noticed by the other passengers!)

To my amazement, the rest of the flight was somewhat uneventful. Little Brother got tired at his usual bedtime and fell asleep in my lap. We were fortunate enough to be close enough to the potty that I could dash in to help Big Brother while Little Brother remained asleep in his seat. Big Brother, on the other hand, kept going strong until we landed.

I called Dad-E to tell him that we landed and that I couldn’t believe that Big Brother was still awake. After all, it was about 11:30pm our time. As soon as I hung up the phone, I turned my head and saw Big Brother asleep on the seat. Apparently this is Iron Man’s weakness: if you talk about his incredible endurance, he goes into an iron-hard sleep. It took a hammer bit of an effort to wake him up to get him off the plane!

Finally, we got off the plane. Both boys were VERY excited to finally see their Dad-E after four days away.

I was very excited to see him, albeit completely exhausted a little tired.

We picked up our luggage and drove to the hotel.

I was relieved everything went so smoothly. I just wish that Iron Man was as helpful at finding (affordable) breakfast in a foreign city WHEN YOU’RE STARVING AND HYPOGLYCEMIC AND SO IRRITABLE YOU FEEL UTTERLY EVIL as he was at airplane travel. But that’s another story to be continued…

Have a good weekend,
Busy-Mom-E (aka Iron Momma)