The other day I traveled with Kalliopi and our two newborns to Padova from Lulea. After six full months in Lapland - a full autumn and winter, in fact - I needed to get back to my original office, and take care of other business at what has become my second home now. Meanwhile, travel has become considerably more complicated for me: traveling with two infants is no easy matter.
A trip from Lulea to Padova implies about 10 hours of jumping from a plane to the next. This time it started with a taxi drive from our home in northern Lulea to the airport at 5.20AM. I had planned everything beforehand -including the time of the first feed of the babies, the sequence of errands to take care of, from filling a thermos with hot water for the formula milk to filling backpacks with empty bottles, checking travel documents for the fours of us, making sure the dog had all it needed, etcetera. I even had taken care of spreading gravel on the melting ice the night before (the temperature was going below zero overnight, and the layer of ice in front of our doorstep was in a triple-point state in the evening, making for the perfect trip hazard while bringing the babies out to the taxi in the morning). 

I had calculated a contingency of 15 minutes in the time schedule, allowing us to check in (no electronic check in is possible if you travel with a dog) and get to the gate in time to mix the powder with hot water (an operation it should be done no earlier than 2 hours before the feed) for the second daily feed of the babies. But the taxi driver arrived exactly 12 minutes late, and then proved to be rather disorganized (we had called the taxi company twice to ensure they would come with TWO infant seats and enough space for two adults, but it turned out the car was pretty small). 

The driver also drove very slowly, but eventually we got to the airport - 20 minutes late, with me silently bitching about it. Off to the check-in, where things went smoothly. We had chosen to bring with us two very lightweight strollers that fold into carry-on-size luggage, and SAS did not object. But they were unable to give us decent seats close together, and we accepted to be seated in different rows. I have to explain that traveling with two infants and a dog throws a monkey wrench in the seat assignment, as the person carrying a dog can only seat in certain areas, and persons with infants need to be seated in rows where there's an extra oxygen outlet. Too bad.

Passing the security controls is another kind of nightmare, and I can only pity the persons behind us in the queue, as they had to wait something like 10 minutes for us to do the usual operations a regular person does before the scanner, with the addition of 1) taking the infants from their strollers, folding the strollers, putting the infants on our baby bjorns, taking the dog out of its box, walking with the dog and the infants through the scanner, and then arguing with the personnel that the hot water is admissible if you travel with infants (but they checked it with a machine anyway), as was the tetrapak with liquid formula we had brought for backup. Then putting everything back in its proper place took another eternity. And we were traveling very light: one backpack each for me and my wife, the two 6kg strollers, and the dog box. 

[In truth, while asymptotically one could imagine that if you have two houses A and B, moving from A to B or back should be relatively painless as you have everything you need in both places, and you only need to take care of carrying with you the stuff of which there's only one copy (laptop, documents, and little more), with infants everything is work in progress, because of the speed at which they grow.  This was the first time with them as they were born on December 16, but regardless of that, you need to buy new stuff very quickly. So while in Sweden we had everything we needed, in Italy there was nothing to accommodate the newborns. We managed to purchase and get some stuff sent to the Padova house such that we'd find it upon our arrival, but not everything we needed.... But I will get to this point later.]


So once we got past the gate (pre-boarding! I have a gold card with Air France so usually board in zone 1/2 with SAS too, but with babies you get this little bonus) and arrived at the plane, we had to execute the other part of the plan: take babies again from stroller to baby bjorn, with one hand fold the stroller, then carry everything inside. Once you get to your seat, you find this small extra seat belt that you have to attach to your own and wrap around the baby for take off and landing. Not easy to do, especially while having to put the stuff overhead, taking off the baby bjorn too; and letting other passenger go through. One tip if you do this yourself: pay special attention to cover your baby's head when you are sitting on an aisle seat, as other passengers will ignore the danger the babies face, and move about with backpacks swung in all direction. I had to physically bump some of them off to prevent collisions, and then also apologize for it...

The first leg of the trip, Lulea to Stockholm, was uneventful, as the babies were extremely calm on our laps. I fed Alessandro a bottle toward the end, timing it to coincide with the plane descent so that his ears would naturally re-pressurize. At arrival, of course you want to let everybody out of the plane before you perform the complicated recomposition of the puzzle. But if you are sitting in an aisle seat (highly recommendable with infants, as you may need to run to the toilet in no time in case of number 2 trouble), things aren't too straightforward. Again, nudges and hastily downloaded luggate from overhead bins are two dangers to thwart.

At Stockholm we went straight to the SAS lounge, but there's the rub - with a dog, you can't take it out of his box there. So there comes the need of the extra walk out of the lounge, while babies are changed (fortunately in Sweden bathrooms are very kid-friendly). We had enough time to relax, and then off to terminal 2 from terminal 5 with a bus, and into another lounge for an extra filling of hot water and other commodities. Then boarding for Amsterdam was uneventful - again preboarding helped a bit.

Even with the marvel of babies we have, keeping them on your lap for two straight hours, without a chance to move to avoid waking them up, is straining your back and your muscles a lot. Doing it three times in a day is unadvisable, but that's what our day foresaw. So after disembarking at Amsterdam, visiting another lounge, rushing to the new gate, and arguing with the KLM CityHopper about them wanting to get the strollers (they have the right to do it, although it is questionable why since they look exactly like a carry-on once folded), we got the blessing of a third torture of our muscles, flying from Amsterdam to Venice. The babies were so quiet people around were impressed, but the fatigue of the three trips in the end made itself felt. We arrived safely in Venice in time, but in dire need of rest.

A final bus ride took us to Padova, close to home, and we joyfully arrived at our place all in one piece and with no major damage or loss, at 6.40PM. There, the day was not over. We needed to improvise a couch for the babies, prepare formulas, create safe space off-limits for the dog, and drink and eat something ourselves. We crashed on the bed at 9PM, and slept for a total of 9 hours until 10AM of the following day (as we had to wake up twice to feed the babies...)

So there you have it, a detailed description of what it means to travel with twin infants. I am sixty years old but still in reasonably good shape; I think I am happy I am not 70, as this kind of exercise is a bit too much for anybody, leave alone an aging physicist...