Have love, will travel

One of the recurring memes I have with my mother involves teasing her about her propensity to prepare for travel so far in advance of her actual departure time that she might as well just go the airport the night before her flight is scheduled to leave. 

Mom:  "What time do we need to leave for the airport tomorrow?"
Me:  "What time's your flight?"
Mom:  "10:30 in the morning."
Me:  "Well, it only takes about half an hour to get there, so why don't we leave at 9 or 9:15?  You're not checking a bag, right?"
Mom:  "Will that give me enough time?  Why don't we leave at 8:15 or 8:30?"
Me:  "Why don't we just leave now?"

But now that I regularly travel with small children, including navigating security lines with a toddler who wants to run around and hang from every retractable rope stantion, getting through security with FAA-approved carseats and baby strollers that will then need to be gate-checked and sippy cups that the agent may or may not decide needs to be tested for explosives, not to mention the luggage itself, finding a bathroom when Zeke decides he needs to go potty RIGHT NOW or when Josie decides that 3 minutes before we board is a great time to blow out her diaper, keeping the kids in control at the gate area, let alone praying for no tantrums or fussing during the plane ride itself ---- well, let's just say that my stress level when I travel now is sufficiently higher than it was before I had kids, and all I can tell my mom is, "You're right, you're right, I know you're right."

Of course, if we plan to get there by 8:30 for a 10:30 flight to DC to spend the holiday with my parents, all of the hoopla about the crowds and threats of boycotting the full body scanners resulting in horrific lines at the airport will end up being totally overblown.  I've already printed out our boarding passes, so we'll check our bags, fly through security in 10 minutes, and have hours to entertain the kids at the gate.  Or not.  Who knows?

But honestly, I don't even care.  I'm so excited.  My brother and his significant other and her dog (a hilariously fat, lazy pug for whom Sam created a Facebook profile, and his status updates are things like "I feel like I'm some combination of the Star Wars Sand People, ET, Ewoks, and Winston Churchill. Assuming they ate street garbage and peed on everything, of course" -- so fucking funny) will be there, and we always do a Turkey Trot run for charity on Thursday morning, and Thanksgiving dinner is always awesome, and we've got the Day After Thanksgiving Pie (DATP) gathering on Friday with my friend Ali and her family, and then my cousins are coming over, and we're going to a hockey game, and the kids get to hang out with their adored (and adoring) grandparents, and there's football to watch, and I'm plotzing because I love Thanksgiving so much and I can't wait to get there.

Bring it on, TSA, crowds and everything else.  I'm ready for you.  You won't break me, because my destination is too wonderful to make the journey bad.