You know you’re a special kind of adrenaline junkie when you fly solo for the first time in years… and somehow discover yourself wishing you had a couple a kids with you 😂😂

And no I don’t mean at the destination, I mean in transit- I’m talkin airport, and even PLANE. I know what you’re thinking, and you are not wrong- I don’t mean to say I don’t still have some trauma to unpack from our many family travels… it’s true. I reflect on the various bouts of in-flight entertainment provided by my many spirited offspring, these ranging through all of the usual unsavory body fluids inevitably at some point breaching containment (it’s not if it’s when), the infamous tiny swaddled baby log-rolling down the airplane isle (yes that actually happened), and mealtime goings-on periodically sending food into the air with such velocity it gives a whole new meaning to in-flight meals

So yes, there’s that. Buuuut, you know what else there is? There’s CONNECTION. You know what happens when you parade a passel of delightfully ragamuffin, unbelievably noisy, unnaturally cuuute tiny people through these masses? They look. (You could probably have a shockingly similar experience if you were somehow able to get a herd of goats in the airport and try to get them discreetly from point A to point B)They gawk maybe, but they also smile. Okay, not everyone is amused, alright fine some are downright nasty, but we disregard those bad apples What I notice traveling WITHOUT kids is that no one wants to look at each other, no one wants to smile, and we work awfully hard to avoid contact.

In a world that’s wasting away from isolation and insulation- God, we need connection. I just love how the little people bring it. What is it about children that is so disarming to us adults? Maybe their honesty (if they’re happy you know it, if they’re mad YOU KNOW IT ), maybe it’s how they don’t judge us, or they do but they just blurt it out and we all laugh, or maybe it’s just how darned cute they are…

Idk, but God knew what he was doing. What a wonder it is to be a parent, what a privilege. Grateful for my tiny tribe of gifted connectors, and for how we are all wired for that connection whether we resist it or not.