Perhaps traveling alone was not the brightest idea: Part the Second

We land in Stockholm. Friendly Laura stops by to help me get everything off the plane. We get out of the plane to the total absence of stroller. “Where is my stroller?” I ask, and am told to keep walking, it will be there. Now we are in the airport proper, still no stroller and nobody around to ask; the doors leading back to the airplane are closed, with finality. There are two possible directions to go (down or left), and Laura and I chose down, in hopes that the stroller awaits at the bottom. DemonChild freaks out on the escalator, and learns that falling down is NOT an acceptable coping mechanism when you are on what basically amounts to moving stairs. Once down, we find out that we should have gone left. Laura helps me carry Squeeker back upstairs, elevators (or escalators up) not being high on list of priorities in the Arlanda airport. DemonChild is not in the mood to walk up the steps, so I more or less drag him by the arm. Upstairs is now totally empty; Laura finds me a cart somewhere, and tells me that by now she would have been crying. I explain that my TSA interlude took care of that.

Helpful Laura departs to meet with her husband and children, and I approach the apparently empty security checkpoint leading to my gate. Turns out there IS someone manning it; my bottle of water is confiscated (it does not matter that I literally took it off the plane – rules are rules), but DemonChild is allowed to keep the water in his sippy cup (which he then accidentally half-spills on the wood laminate floor – not something you see in airports often, and I flash back to my Mom ironing their wood laminate floor when it got accidentally rained on), mainly because they have no place to dump the water, and I suspect the guard feels bad for me. He does explain that strollers are not allowed in Arlanda if you are making a connecting flight, and assures me that my stroller will go to St. Petersburg. I, however, am in a possession of a gate tag that clearly says “ARL” on it, so I have other opinions on the odds of stroller and self reuniting at our final destination.

I have an hour to kill before boarding starts. Our gate is at the other end of the terminal, so we take a leasurely walk there. I attempt to put the bear harness on DemonChild, who promptly has a meltdown – he wants to be the one holding “monkey tail.” Fine. We perambulate down terminal 5, DemonChild leading me on the leash. We take a look at waiting planes. DemonChild screams “sleeping! Ssshhhhh!” whenever he sees people asleep. I try putting the harness on him again. Full-blown meltdown ensues. Somebody really really needs a nap. We go for another walk along the terminal, DemonChild leading by the tail.

Back at the gate, other passengers bound to St. Petersburg have shown up. A nice lady takes DemonChild for a little walk. Another lady holds Squeeker. Everybody is sympathetic, and refrain from saying I must have been out of my mind to fly alone with two kids. We board. Our seats are at the very back of the plane. Squeektar starts to squeek as we walk down the isle; by the time I plop him in the window seat, he is out. Once we are in the air, I take DemonChild to the bathroom to get changed. It must be right over the motors; the hiss of air and roar of engines are very loud. DemonChild is very obviously freaked out, and submits to diaper change with a very clear “can we please get done here ASAP?” expression on his face. Poor little guy. He finally falls asleep during the last 15 minutes of our one-hour flight. I chat with the stewardess, who tells me that the reason why they don’t gate check strollers in Arlanda has something to do with insurance policies.

We land in St. Petersburg. The stewardess helps me with luggage, then the lady who walked DemonChild before takes Squeek, and her husband takes my carryons. We walk to customs; upon spying the escalator, DemonChild begs to be picked up. Smart boy. Amazingly, there is no line to get through customs. We are done in less than 5 minutes, and actually have to wait for luggage. Helpful Russian couple gets me a cart, and suggest I try to get the kids to my parents first. It’s a good idea; Dad is already hovering in the entryway, so I hand the boys over and resist an urge to go right back through customs and take a little vacation of my own *grins*

Luggage arrives. Not surprisingly, the stroller does not. I go to “Lost Luggage” department and try to explain that my luggage is not so much lost as shipped to the wrong place. After advising me to always ask questions about where my luggage is going in the future, they promise to hunt the stroller down. [Sure enough, they call Tuesday night to let us know the stroller arrived in Pulkovo airport, and then deliver it to my parents house on Wednesday evening.]

The hard part of traveling to Russia is over. Now to see if I can avoid driving parental units nuts during our four-week stay.