Travels with two

I don’t know how people do it…travel with young children that is.
Traveling with one child is manageable in my opinion.  The odds are in your favor at least. But when it’s two for two, it’s not so easy.  Maybe it was just the ages and stages that mine are at that made it so challenging.  J is just over 3 now and A is almost 1.
From day one of the “vacation” J kept asking to go home. I was floored. Neither one cared much for the beach.  I guess it was the intense heat too, since they were both flushed within a minute or two of being outdoors.  J has been to the beach before (he enjoyed it just last summer), but A had never been in sand or the ocean.  On the departing flight, both boys were behaved, coming back was a very different story.
Here’s what I learned from the experience:
1.  It might have helped to have verbally prepared J in advance for the trip (i.e.: by telling him we would be going on a plane and to the beach, what happens at each place, etc.) (He’s a kid that likes his routine.)
2. The earlier flight times worked better – earlier in the day, the kids were less cranky and it’s a lot easier to deal with less cranky kids on the plane where you are confined to space and don’t want them screaming all flight long
3. The things you expect to be problems, aren’t, and things you don’t expect are problems – I anticipated that sleep would be an issue for the two, but surprisingly that was very manageable. What I hadn’t anticipated were things like: a) neither child enjoying the heat, b) both being afraid of the water, c) J having tantrums traveling from one place to the other
4. Long waiting and/or long sitting times contributed to the tantrums – checking in at the airport took forever (thanks to the long line to go through U.S. Customs on the way to the U.S.); coming back I allowed J a lot of time to move and explore, etc. before making him sit for hours
5. I had an arsenal of toys and activities at the ready to entertain the kids and I could have saved a little of that space. J was amused mostly with the portable DVD player and a toy or two for the flight. A was content playing with spoons, water bottles, etc.
6. Perhaps J and A would have benefited from some exposure to water and sand right before the trip. I’m sure both boys would have had a little bit more fun at the beach had they have been a little bit more familiar with the sand and water. Hindsight is 20/20.