Cross-country without her copilot

I recently took my children on a weeklong vacation to Maryland on my own. My husband thought I was crazy, and even I quailed a bit at the 11th hour, but it was actually fun.

Which isn’t to say we didn’t have our moments. The children, 6 and 4 (though Danny turned 7 during the trip and Fiona turned 5 a week later), had to wake up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday, pile in the car, kiss Daddy goodbye at the curb, endure the long lines of check-in and security -- the decision to let Danny wear his roller shoes, even without the wheels attached, was not my best -- and then sit at the gate for an hour and a half.

I got them breakfast, which meant that within three minutes of being seated, Fiona had spilled orange juice all over herself. But having traveled with her before, I had packed an extra set of clothes for her in my carry-on. (Now I pack a cup with a lid as well.)

We arrived so early because United Airlines had not seated us together; when I booked the tickets months earlier, they told me they could assign seats for only a small percentage of passengers, and those were already booked. When I called a few days beforehand, they told me the same thing and that I should get my seats at the gate.

Yet two hours before boarding all the seats were mysteriously assigned and the fact that I was traveling with two small children carried no weight. The gate official finally got the kids seated together and gave me a nearby window seat, which she felt would be more “tradable.” It wasn’t, as the woman seated next to the children was claustrophobic; the prospect of a window seat was more intolerable to her than the thought of flying next to my children.

Fortunately, another nice woman traded her aisle seat and took the window, but I don’t think a major airline should depend on the kindness of strangers when seating its passengers.

After the almost five-hour flight to Baltimore -- fortunately we had a portable DVD player, a Leapster and a GameBoy -- I collected luggage while not losing children (thank you to the nice man who grabbed the big bag for us) and arbitrated over who got to put the money in the luggage cart machine and who got to hold the change. I loaded luggage, and children, onto a cart and pushed it to the shuttle bus that would take us to the rental car plaza (located somewhere, apparently, in Virginia), then endured the inevitable slow-moving line and the long walk from counter to car while explaining that, no, we were not actually there yet.

We drove one hour to my hometown of Westminster through sylvan countryside. I narrated with a sort of desperate nostalgia (“Look, the restaurant Mommy went to the night of the junior prom, although not on a real date, just with a friend”) and arrived at the home of my aunt and cousins -- and the new baby who was the impetus for the trip -- only to find both my children passed out in the back seat.

Did I mention that Danny is 4 1/2 feet tall and weighs, when asleep, something like 250 pounds?

Every parent with a partner should take the kids on a trip alone at least once if only to strengthen the appreciation of her or his mate. It’s easy to overlook the bliss of having someone else around to take a child to the bathroom or tell him to stop climbing on the chairs or answer the endless, imperfectly delivered knock-knock jokes. (The bathroom thing is especially tricky with an opposite-sex child who has decided he is too old to go into the ladies’ room -- my apologies to any gentlemen I may have disturbed with my doorway hovering and occasional shouts of inquiry.)

I was fortunate because we stayed with my high school friend Kim and her husband, Mike, both of whom possess not only that rare talent for making you feel instantly and completely at home but also have three of the nicest children I have ever met. Not to mention a trampoline. So I wasn’t exactly planning excursions and maintaining order from the confines of a double at the Holiday Inn.

Still, I was with the kids pretty much 24/7, which turned out to be the best and worst of times. We went on day trips -- Maryland may be a little state, but with Baltimore, Washington, Annapolis and Gettysburg, Pa., nearby the possibilities are endless -- visited with family and puttered around my hometown and its environs, which were lovelier and more peaceful than I remembered. (Interestingly, my children, who never complain about long car trips in Los Angeles, were not in the car 20 minutes before they announced that they were bored. Something about the rural landscape, no doubt.)

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Best part of trip

I did not think this would be a relaxing trip, and it wasn’t. For one thing, the kids adjusted to East Coast time just one day before we left. But it was calmer and less arduous than I feared. My children have their issues -- they fight more now than when they were little, and Fiona is trying to break my mind through emotional manipulation -- but they are enjoyable little people, full of interesting thoughts and fancies, observant and able to adjust to most situations.

For Kim and me, it was perfect. Her husband went on a business trip for a few days during our visit, so there we were, like in the old days, only with these kids to wrangle. But walking toward the Lincoln Memorial, the cherry blossoms in full bloom, we watched our children play together -- the boys gliding along the Reflecting Pool in their rolly shoes, the girls holding hands and running across the grass. That moment in itself made the whole trip worthwhile.

By the sixth day, the kids were missing their dad, and so was I. With him as a carrot, it was an easy trip home. (It also helped that we were seated together.) I cannot sing the praises of a portable DVD player and hand-held games loudly enough. Coloring and reading will buy you a couple of hours, the drinks and meal give you another 20 minutes, but my kids are too young to lose themselves in a novel, much less gentle reverie, so something is needed to fill the gap. I lived in fear that they would become instantly addicted, but as soon as we got home, the games went in the cupboard, and there they stay.

Do, however, remember to recharge the GameBoy and check all batteries before you go into the airport; Fiona’s Leapster ran out of juice just before we boarded the plane. I had extra batteries but no screwdriver. I tried everything in my purse, including the various pieces of a hairclip and was finally saved by a nice young man who used the tab from his watchband quite effectively. (Another benefit of traveling alone with children is you realize that many people are actually very nice.)

Also, although the miniature cannon will make it through security once the guard has ascertained that it does not fire -- “If it fired, my mom wouldn’t have let me buy it,” Danny told the guard sadly -- that small replica of a Civil War musket will not. You’d better ship it.

Just so you know.