It’s a crazy adventure with 13 luggage pieces, two screaming toddlers, and two frustrated adults.
LAS VEGAS – It’s 5:00 a.m. here and I am wide awake – which is very unusual for a late morning riser – listening to Jeff snoring his ideas of a great day drive on our way to Salt Lake City.
I am waiting for Antoinette to mumble incomprehensible lines which reminds me of my brother Hendrix’s sleep talking days and the answers I get when I ask him questions (except in Antoinette’s case, I only get another round of mumbles and grunts and then a 10-second squeal).
The entire family arrived in Los Angeles at 7:00 p.m on a Wednesday, May 20 (10:00 a.m. of May 21 Philippine time) and it was nothing short of stressful. I tried to convince myself, repeatedly in fact, that I should stop whining about how tired and frustrated and stressful the entire journey from China to the United States was. But I am whiner by nature and I think I have the space to rant about this one particular experience (on top of all other experiences you’ve read about in this blog) so let me just go ahead and be myself.
To start, we got free tickets courtesy of Jeff’s work with a Guangzhou-based airline. We had to pay the taxes but we got upgraded to business class. Yep, four seats for the four of us, business class. But the two main reasons you travel on a business class accommodation is comfort and service: you get great seats which turn into beds, you get great food (and China Southern Airlines is awesome in the several times I have flown with them on long-haul flights), and you get varied entertainment options, not to mention the overflowing wine and the cheese.
But when you’re traveling with toddlers, that sense of luxury is close to nil.
Okay, okay, I take that back. For this trip, the twins were actually a lot better than that September 2014 travel when Antoinette was awake for 12 hours, the entire duration of the flight, and Nicholas was an on-and-off sleeper.
This May 2015 flight, they were actually better. I attribute it to a “more mature” age; they’re 22 months old now, compared to their 14-month-old selves last September. In this recent trip, Antoinette screamed before wheels up and Nicholas was checking out every aisle and row probably looking for a lovely woman to show off his baby curls and beautiful eyes. The good news is: Antoinette slept for eight straight hours and Nicholas was a complacent little rascal who watched Rio, Penguins of Madagascar, and Happy Feet 2 in the comforts of his seat with his Dad beside him.
The two held hands when we exited the plane, jet-lagged and ready to fall over.
Cute huh?
Not quite because the moment we stepped out of the elevator to proceed to the immigration counter, Nicholas stopped walking and rolled on the floor and said “No Nanay!” That meant he was not interested to walk any more steps and would rather stay there for the duration. It’s not the first time he did that but it’s not something I wanted to deal with after a long haul flight, pregnant, and carrying a heavy backpack while their Dad was struggling with four carry on bags (and stressing out on how to manage the seven large luggage pieces which we still needed to retrieve at the baggage claim area). Antoinette helped me out by telling her twin brother to hold her hand and get up. But even Antoinette who often persuades Nicholas to do what she wants him to do was not powerful enough to convince Nicholas from stepping out of his terrible-two, jet-lagged moment.
Knowing that we still need to hustle through a long line of returning US citizens, immigrants and tourists, I decided to pick Nick up – all 14 kilos of him – and hold Toni with my other hand. At that point, Toni decided to freak out. She screamed and cried and wanted me to carry her too! In my mind, I was already thinking of how to slap my children in a way that I won’t be charge with child abuse. I was angry and frustrated. The stares from people didn’t’t help. I stopped making eye contact because I didn’t want to see that look in their eyes telling and taunting me, “Oh you poor mother dear”. Eventually, Jeff came back to rescue me. He picked up Antoinette and spanked her ONCE. She wailed for 20 seconds and then she rested her head on Dad’s shoulder.
Where is the stroller, you may ask? All the way down to the baggage claim area, thank you very much.
Moving on to the immigration kiosk is another story – a repeat performance of temper tantrums that had me think about the possibility of me getting a miscarriage and losing Jeff Jr. The events of the past weeks have been truly traumatizing and disheartening that I felt that I was not anymore up for more emotional and physical beatings. I needed a break! Seriously. I am pregnant and I don’t need this. Heck, I didn’t even had a decent announcement of this pregnancy in this blog because things went haywire after we found out that we’re pregnant for the second time with Baby Number 3.
My first ray of hope took the shape of an Asian immigration officer (probably born and raised in the United States) with a Vietnamese-sounding family name. He was courteous and sympathetic and asked Jeff a couple of questions. The twins are American citizens so that did not pose any problem. He asked for my fingerprints while Antoinette went ballistic – screaming and crying and begging me to carry her. Our passports were stamped and off we went to claim our baggage.
Okay, about the amount of luggage that we had: 1 big black monster, 1 duffel bag, 1 medium-sized black bag, 1 medium-sized colorful luggage piece, an Olympic torch, an Asian Games travel companion bag, another multi-colored luggage, an orange backpack, a blue-and-white backpack as baby bag, a carry on duffel bag, three laptops, a stroller, and one more bag I can’t describe. Yep! A loooot! Oh, and two screaming toddlers.
A Filipino American airport employee helped us with luggage, another angel of a man, who made customs check a breeze for us.
The next challenge was: ground transportation from the Tom Bradley International Terminal to the Marriott Courtyard in Anaheim. We already rented a car at Fox but it was impossible to drag all those luggage pieces to Fox headquarters while we try to manage the twins – and there we no car seats. So the idea was to stay put – me and the twins – at the arrival area and wait for Jeff to come back with a monster car to bring us all to the hotel and crash for the night.
It would take more than 1,000 words to describe what happened to me, pregnant me, as I managed twins and 13 luggage pieces outside that airport in cold weather. The twins were running around in opposite directions, screaming for food (I had biscuits and chocolates in our bag but those weren’t enough to satisfy their hunger) as I stared absentmindedly at people shuttling back and forth the airport, and cars running from different directions.
I cried.
I cried hard. Really hard.
I thought about how easier my life was when I was singl, alone, more than capable of taking care of myself, and not minding about other people. I wanted to slap my kids for making my life harder; I wanted to scream; I wanted to go back to the Philippines and ask my Aunt to cook afritada or chicken-pork adobo and potfuls of rice. Because everything is always better with rice.
But you know the feeling that you just want to get lost in the moment with yourself but you can’t because you have a responsibiltiy to deal with? That responsibility involves two children and 13-luggage pieces. I already convinced myself that something really bad is going to happen to my pregnancy. Not optimistic. That’s me when I’m on my way to the dark side called depression.
Jeff arrived almost an hour later, loaded all the luggage pieces as fast as he could, strapped the kids in their car seats while I found myself in the passenger seat crying my heart out and telling him that I want to go back to Cebu because my life is way more comfortable there.
He cried too.
We both cried as LA’s traffic situation made it possible for us to weep and feel sorry for ourselves. After a while, I said I want to die and I want pizza. We laughed. The twins were so quiet I thought they were already asleep. But they were just there, comfortably seated, looking out of the window wondering where on the world map they are currently situated (or maybe that’s not what they were thinking, maybe they were thinking about unicorns and rainbows, or cookies and ice cold milk). Meanwhile, I told Jeff I’ll settle for a burger from Carl’s Jr. and then, we can all call it a night. We had a 3:00 p.m. flight the following day from Orange Country to Kalispell, Montana (with a three-hour layover in Seattle) but I was too tired to manage children inside airplanes and Jeff got an email about a job opportunity in Salt Lake City so we both agreed to do a road trip just like the last time we visited the States.
We checked in at the Marriott Courtyard in Anaheim, whose receptionist was another angel from heaven who gave us a family suite with a separate room for the twins. While Jeff and I rearranged our travel plans, the twins were “partying” in the other room, turning the lamp on and off while dancing to some tune playing on Disney Channel. Yes, I let them go on a television binge just to get rid of them for a few hours. The partying went on from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. I checked their room at about 6:00 a.m. and they were both sprawled on the floor like drunken zombies.
I told Jeff I am happy that we finally reached America after all the stressful weeks of waiting for this day to come. We both agreed it’s the best move for our growing family. We cried again and uttered our apologies for any shortcomings and then, promised ourselves to be better.
I went back to sleep and woke up at 9:00 am. Jeff was already done with laundry and Danielle, the twin’s older sister, has arrived and greeted me “Good Morning”.
Thursday was a beautiful day – and we’re off on a road trip to Salt Lake City passing by Las Vegas for a quick, one-night stop.
It will still take a lot of time for me to grow up as a wife and as a mother. It’s a difficult journey to become a better version of myself especially in playing these two crucial roles. I am not getting any better. Not yet. But experiences like this might just make me more “wisdomed” and humble enough to realize that not all things can be under my control; that it is okay to cry and get frustrated, but it is important to hold on to your promise to never let go especially when times are hard.
As Jeff would always say, “It doesn’t matter what we do, as long as we’re together.”
Our adventure continues…
