We wanted to get away, get some sun now the days are getting shorter, darker, and colder. Destination: the Canary Islands, a flight of about four and a half hours with our family of five. I’m pretty sure some people thought this was a bad idea from the start, myself included (I honestly wasn’t convinced we would have a nice and relaxing time). I started making checklists (yes, I’m a list person) and started preparing for our trip a few weeks before. We were up to the challenge!

Luckily things went way better than expected. There was a moment during the flight when the baby and the three-year old were sleeping and the two-year old was flipping through the in-flight shopping magazine and I remember thinking “how good are my kids?!”. I even contemplated if I should lay down and take a nap but decided that was a bridge too far. I felt proud of my little ones as they were charming away fellow passengers who remarked how well the kids had behaved during the flight, probably feeling very relieved. I can only imagine what they were thinking when they saw us board the plane…“please don’t let them sit next to me” which is exactly what I would be thinking.

We did have a lot of luggage (I just can’t travel light) with two suitcases, a backpack, a diaper bag, a double stroller, a single one, and three kids. As a parent of small kids I constantly feel like a mule, carrying around all kinds of stuff just in case someone gets hungry or thirsty, or wets themself, usually forgetting something essential anyway. But on an airplane I wanted to be more than prepared with enough diapers in two sizes, clean clothes for all three kids because you never know, food (if you can call cookies, carrot chips and chocolate real food), and entertainment in the form of crayons and an iPad.

Temperature was so nice on the island; all we needed were swimwear, flipflops, and a swimming pool. Where we used to travel around places wanting to see as much as we could when it was just the two of us, we now only left the hotel to buy diapers. Or how having kids has changed our travel habits…

I saw many little and not so little bumps while on our trip, like everyone around me was pregnant, and I must say I felt a bit jealous. I can’t believe I will never get to experience pregnancy ever again, or hold a newborn baby in my arms, at least not my own. I look at all the tiny little clothes she already outgrew, thinking ‘so this is the last time I ‘ll get to use these’ and blinking away a tear so to speak. Every milestone she reaches, however small, reminds me that she’s growing way too fast. But before my hubbie gets a heart attack reading this, I do think three kids is more than we can handle!