Over spring break we visited my parents in Houston. It turned out better than I thought it would. I always worry about traveling with three autistic kids. You never know what you’re going to get. But I took my own advice – I called the airline a few days beforehand as well as TSA to prep and get the skinny on what to do. They hadn’t been through the new scanners yet, and I wasn’t sure how they would take it. Just as an FYI, they should NEVER separate your child from you, and if they have issues with the scan, a TSA agent can pull them to the side to do it with the wand thing. We got through security pretty painlessly, all things considered. We got to our gate, and the flight was delayed twice. The flight that was scheduled to take off an hour and a half after ours actually beat us to Houston. That was fun. We parked ourselves in the waiting area as far back as we could, so the kids could get up and move around if they needed to – spin, stretch, whatever. We brought an arsenal of stuff, too. Had the mini DVD player with a selection of movies and some games, and the iPad. If you do have to do that, there is an external battery you can get for your iPad and iPhone for those times there’s no outlet nearby and you don’t want it dying on your child at the most inopportune time. So, at least we averted that disaster. But they were good an squirrelly by the time the plane finally boarded, and I was dreading the flight. So we did our pre-board. The attendant almost always gives a vacant stare when we ask for the little blue card. I just love how everyone gives you the evil eye when we do that. But who cares? Alex, especially, has to touch everything and get acquainted with the plane and his spot before he settles down, (and yes, I bring along hand sanitizer – at least he doesn’t lick stuff as much anymore!) and I’d prefer not to have him do that with 129 cranky passengers backed up in the aisle behind us.
But it went okay. Well, as okay as can be expected. They didn’t scream, minor behaviors where we switched kids a few times. I had to ask the woman behind Kennedy to put her feet down and stop kicking Kennedy in the head, though. She literally had her feet in the air, bracing against the headrest. Kennedy introduced herself to the crew every time she went to the bathroom, and they chatted with her about “her” plane. And when we got into Houston after midnight, it was still 80 degrees outside with 90% humidity.
