I had such grand designs of writing about our arrival.  Then the actual arrival came and it’s been a whirlwind.  I haven’t had any time to sit down and reflect–much to my dismay.

There is so much I want to say and record.

Then I remember Anne Lamott’s one inch picture frame.

So here’s what I can see through a one inch picture frame when I think about flying to Brazil with 3 small children:

On the flight from Cincinnati to Newark we realized we had left their tablets back at my parents’ house.  This was a major blow, akin to Oedipus’s tragic fall.  In our packing hubris, we forgot to get the tablets.  The kids cried.  We gave them our phones.  All was well in the land of 21st century problems.

Matilda fell asleep in the stroller in our layover in Newark.  This was a blessing to all because she was becoming insanely tired and cranky.  When we boarded our flight from Newark to Brazil, I looked back as we walked dow the aisle and couldn’t find Matilda.  Calvin ran back and found her curled up on one of the first seats, asleep again.  She was so tired she decided to plunk down on the first available seat.  It’s hard to explain to an sleepy 3 year old that we have assigned seats and those aren’t them.  We finally got her to our row and she fell back to sleep on my lap.

Everett, on the other hand, was wide awake.  At 10 pm.  This is a kid who goes to bed at 7:30 every night.  We strapped him into his carseat for take off, he was super tired.  But there was a delayed connecting flight, so we had to wait take off until those passengers arrived.  All that kid wanted was to sleep, but all the lights were still on in the cabin.  He cried and cried.

10 seconds after take off, he fell asleep.  He slept most of the night.  Calvin and Matilda slept curled up like kittens on our row of three.  They slept on me, on the window, on each other.  Restless kittens is more accurate.  Pigs in a barn?  Not sure the right simile.

I got about 90 minutes.  Too much responsibility and dry airplane air.

We landed.  We survived.  We were tired.

Okay, that’s all I got.  I didn’t proofread (no time, don’t judge).