Lorilee Craker - Just Give Me a Little Piece of Quiet: Daily Getaways for a Moms Soul

Recently I was at an airport gate with my two sons, having heard the disturbing news that our flight would be delayed by an hour or more. My heart sank. Flying with toddlers is just plain stressful, and my particular totwith his will of iron ore and his strong dislike of sitting stillwas at that juncture jumping on my last nerve. All the clever little plane toys I had packed had been checked already, and all I wanted to do was get on the planeour last leg of a long days journeyand fly home.

You know how, as moms, we kind of budget our energy and patience for whatever time frame were dealing with? I had calculated about two hours more of travel time until I could hand my darling cherubs over to their doting dad, who would be waiting at the appointed time at the airport in Grand Rapids. My stamina budget was set at two hours, not three or four, and I was sure my estimated energy expenditures would dry up long before the blessed sight of Gerald R. Ford International Airport.

Can you believe this? A cute blond mom of two rolled her eyes as we shared our misery. Yeah, this is real nice, I agreed, my maternal instincts taut against the possibility that my turbo tot couldand woulddart out at any second, possibly right in front of one of those scary airport golf carts zooming around the terminal.

Without really discussing it, we two waylaid traveling clans hunkered down and waited out the delay together. Snacks were procured or dug out of bags, and the six of us sat cross-legged on the airport floor having a picnic of sorts. The mom and I chatted about our kidsher girl and my oldest were the same age, and her boy and my little guy were close; the perils of flying with kids; weight loss; preschool; favorite movies; and everything else under the sun. (I must admit, when her travel-weary three-year-old started choking his big sister, my tension started to unravel. Isnt that an awful thing to admit? Somehow, watching other kids behave badly was almost refreshing after untangling my own childrens snarls all day long.) Evidently even put-together moms like my new acquaintance, Mrs. California, had times when their children were out of controlin public!

Then this wonderful woman suddenly produced a portable DVD player from her bag and popped in a Dora the Explorer video. The two little boys lay down on their tummies, heads in hands, and watched the cartoon. My older son, Jonah, taught his new West Coast pala very pretty six-year-old, whom he didnt even mind losing tohow to play Go Fish. Savvy Mommy and I were actually free to have some girl talk. And so it was that my little family passed a very enjoyable hour in the airport terminal. When the gate attendant announced that the bird that had flown into the airplanes engines had been extracted and the plane was cleared to board, I was almost disappointed we didnt have more time together.