Traveling with five children can be challenging, but I tried to be organized & think ahead. I did forget chewing gum for takeoff and landing, but all in all, I think we did pretty ok.

I packed a drawstring backpack for each boy with his own plastic folder containing a new coloring book, notebook, pencil and a few crayons. They also had a paper lunchsack with some snacks, and they each brought a handheld game (the oldest 3 have Nintendo DSes, and the youngest 2 received Leapsters for their birthdays). All of the above kept them fairly occupied.

A few fun tidbits I thought I’d share:
• The flight attendant on our first leg asked the little two if they were twins. No. 5 looked up at her and responded with utmost sincerity, “Nope, we’re brothers.”
• The awesome crew on the next flight offered for the boys to go inside the cockpit AND take turms sitting in the co-captain’s spot! Talk about some excited kids! If that weren’t enough, the captain even let No. 4 greet the passengers over the intercom. He said, “Hi!” and the captain followed up by saying, “That was your captain speaking; he’ll be back in a moment to welcome you aboard.” He totally made my munchkin’s day!
• There were also some kindnesses from strangers, like the grandma who sat next to No. 3 and struck up a conversation with him, the two folks on either side of No. 5 who helped him with his word search — all-around awesome people, and the lady who shared pieces of gum with Nos. 2&4. We didn’t have any control over our seat choices, so it was nice that other folks took to our scattered family so kindly.
• I would be remiss if I didn’t also give a shout out to the terrific volunteers at the USO at IAH (Houston). What sweethearts!

Well, it sounds like everyone is finally asleep! We hit that wall where they were so tired, they got hyper. Thankfully, some dinner in their bellies and a walk back to the hotel in the brisk air seemed to help. I’ll try to write more later this weekend.